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Table of Contents:
for Publications
Alessandro Ludovico <a.ludovico@neural.it>
September 2002
Le Monde diplomatique <dispatch@monde-diplomatique.fr>
Call for Contributions to Sarai Reader 03 : "Shaping Technologies"
Shuddhabrata Sengupta <shuddha@sarai.net>
___ R E A L T O K Y O MAIL MAGAZINE Vol. 95___
OZAKI Tetsuya <ozaki@blue.ocn.ne.jp>
Rexroth's Poetic Anarchism
"Bureau of Public Secrets" <knabb@slip.net>
en) no border issue of green pepper wants submissions
"anarcho sando" <anarcho_sando@hotmail.com>
variant issue 15 (for announcer)
matthew fuller <matt@axia.demon.co.uk>
argentinas popular rebellion ( new publication )
John Jordan <artactivism@gn.apc.org>
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 11 Sep 2002 14:07:49 +0800
From: Alessandro Ludovico <a.ludovico@neural.it>
Subject: for Publications
NEURAL is an indipendent new media culture
magazine in Italian, printed quarterly.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
:: English content
:: http://www.neural.it/english/
:: interviews and daily links
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
:: [Neural.it] http://www.neural.it/
:: daily news and reviews
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
[Neural n.19 contents]
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
<hacktivism>
. Richard Stallman interview,
. David Lyon interview,
. Hackit 2001,
Radio Cybernet
. news (Hack Xbox, biometrics,
cryptography os, omographs,
Bugnosis, Anti-Keylogger)
. reviews: (Himmanen,
Sarai Reader, Crypto Anarchy,
Kurzweil, John Kats-Geeks,
Berners-Lee, Dertouzos,
Ferry Byte-Parrini, Stallman)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
<e.music>
. Dat Politics (interview),
. 386dx Alexei Shulgin (interview),
. Massimo (interview),
. Home Computer music scene 2
(Nanoloop, Gameboy Pocketnoise),
. news: (Jazz and insects, Hyperscore,
Aphex Twin face, Discogs,
Total Recorder, Sonograms)
. reviews: (Transambient,
Noise Water Meat, Techno Rebels,
Bjork, Clubspotting 2)
. reviews cd: (Peace Orchestra, Fauna
Flash, Koop, Dj Spooky, Mixmaster
Mike, Keoki, Playgroup, 4vini,
Psychick Warriors Ov Gaia,
Ken Ishii, Vainio/Fennesz, Merzbow,
Foetus, Andreas Berthiling,
Jim 'O Rourke, Aphex Twin,
Alec Empire, Nic Endo...)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
<new.media.art>
. Surveillance Camera Players
(interview),
. Lev Manovich (interview),
. Wolfgang Stahele (interview),
. Transmediale 2002,
. MMM + AHA,
. Star Stripper, fiction,
. news: (Hiperlook, Minitasking
10, vOluptuary, Metapet)
. reviews (Arte Y Electricidad,
Telematic Connections, Interaction,
Utopian Entrepreneur, Cast01
Machine Times, AE 2001,
Technicolor, African Fractals,
Metal and Flesh, Supervideo G8,
WW Video Festival, Sign,
Io Erotica, Corpi Sognanti...),
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
:[Neural Station] emusic+news every tuesday
: on Controradio Bari-Popolare Network
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
* 1 year subscription (Europe): 18 Euro (3 issues)
* sample (Europe): 6 Euro.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
NEURAL http://www.neural.it/
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
- --
Alessandro Ludovico
Neural.it - http://www.neural.it/ daily updated news + reviews
Suoni Futuri Digitali - http://www.neural.it/projects/sfd/ ISBN 88-7303-614-7
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 11 Sep 2002 11:47:54 +0200 (CEST)
From: Le Monde diplomatique <dispatch@monde-diplomatique.fr>
Subject: September 2002
Le Monde diplomatique
-----------------------------------------------------
September 2002
In this issue:
... a special dossier: US, the new Rome, the hawks' first
strike doctrine, the Christian right and Israel, the fears
of moderate Islam, why a secret mass grave in Afghanistan?
.. plus Sabra and Shatila 20 years on; is Germany for
Stoiber?; India: full granaries, empty stomachs; Argentina's
life after bankruptcy... and more...
A small number of these articles and our editorial are
available to non-subscribers
To read the rest of this month's articles go to
http://MondeDiplo.com and click on Subscribe.
It couldn't be easier...
Target Baghdad
by ALAIN GRESH
Translated by Wendy Kristianasen
<http://MondeDiplo.com/2002/09/01baghdad>
AFGHANISTAN'S SECRET GRAVES
A drive to death in the desert *
by JAMIE DORAN
President Bush wants to attack Iraq as part of his war on
terror and the "axis of evil", and would like the United
States to regulate world order, or disorder, alone. A new
empire is asserting itself on the international stage,
though not without debate inside the US. Meanwhile
Washington has been unable to bring stability to
Afghanistan nearly a year after its intervention.
Original text in English
The wedding bombing *
J.D.
Translated by Wendy Kristianasen
THE DYNAMICS OF WORLD DISORDER
Westward the course of Empire
by PHILIP S GOLUB
The aftermath of the terrorist attacks has revived
imperialist ideology in the United States, rather than
caused it to query its world role. Writers do not
hesitate to draw parallels between their nation and
ancient Rome, which they hold to be a model for world
domination in the 21st century.
Translated by Harry Forster
<http://MondeDiplo.com/2002/09/03westward>
The hawk doctrine *
by PAUL-MARIE DE LA GORCE
US military strategy was already changing before 11
September, but the attacks reinforced the new approach.
As threats against the American homeland are seen as
intolerable, a strategy for the pre-emptive use of force
is being established, besides traditional deterrence and
containment.
Translated by Harry Forster
Which God is on whose side? *
by IBRAHIM WARDE
Translated by the author
Don't go it alone
I.W.
Translated by the author
<http://MondeDiplo.com/2002/09/05walone>
Islamists divided *
by our special correspondent WENDY KRISTIANASEN
Since last September the gap between Islamic militants
and peaceful movements has widened. But in Egypt there
has been a quiet revolution as the largest radical group
has renounced violence and denounced Osama bin Laden and
al-Qaida.
Original text in English
Hail to the (fictional) chief *
by MARTIN WINCKLER
Translated by Luke Sandford
TWENTY YEARS AFTER THE MASSACRES AT SABRA AND SHATILA
The past is always present
by our special correspondent PIERRE PÉAN
The massacres in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila
in Lebanon in 1982, when hundreds of civilians were
butchered by rightwing militia, remain crucial events in
the history of the Palestinian people.
Translated by Julie Stoker
<http://MondeDiplo.com/2002/09/08sabra>
'LEDERHOSEN AND LAPTOPS'
Germany: the Bavarian model *
by CHRISTIAN SEMLER
Germany is recovering after floods in August, claiming
dozens of lives. Perhaps with the September legislative
elections in mind, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder postponed
scheduled tax cuts and released 7bn euros ($6.8bn). This
welcome move has left Edmund Stoiber, his Christian
Democrat rival, in an awkward position.
Translated by Luke Sandford
FOUR DECADES OF FIGHTING TO RETAIN IDENTITY
West Papua: undefeated *
by our special correspondent DAMIEN FAURE
For 40 years the Indonesian government has had harsh
colonial policy vis-à-vis the people of West Papua
(formerly Irian Jaya). Whereas East Timor became a cause
célèbre, West Papua has been passed over. The United
Nations is not interested. Yet the forgotten people fight
on for their cultural and political identity.
Translated by Barbara Wilson
THE DELIBERATE DESTRUCTION OF AGRICULTURE
India: free markets, empty bellies *
by our special correspondent ROLAND-PIERRE PARINGAUX
The outgoing World Trade Organisation director-general,
Mike Moore, said the WTO's greatest motivation was the
people it served. India's small farmers do not see it
that way. The nation's agricultural policy has long been
geared to meeting its own needs and being self-sufficient
in food. But the WTO is pressing India to open its
markets, and so agriculture is being destroyed as big
foreign producers flood in. And people stay hungry.
Translated by Malcolm Greenwood
When even too much is not enough *
R.P.P.
Translated by Malcolm Greenwood
BARTER, DEMOS, THEATRE AND A DICTIONARY OF CRISIS
Argentina: life after bankruptcy
by our special correspondent CLARA AUGÉ
The Argentine government has acknowledged that it does
not have the funds to do anything about a ruling of the
country's supreme court that a 13% cut in state pensions
and civil servants' salaries was unconstitutional. The
people, angry and energised, are ready to continue
fighting.
Translated by Luke Sandford
<http://MondeDiplo.com/2002/09/13argentina>
WHAT HAPPENED TO THOSE GUARANTEES OF PROSPERITY?
Irregular deregulation *
by SERGE HALIMI
Telecommunications liberalisation, launched by Western
governments to media enthusiasm, was supposed to create
brilliant new industries. IMF loans were to guarantee
prosperity in Latin America. These hopes have been dashed
by stock exchange crashes and by the financial crisis
engulfing Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay.
Translated by Barbara Wilson
________________________________________________________________
_
(*) Star-marked articles are available to paid subscribers only.
Yearly subscription fee: 24 US $ (Institutions 48 US $).
______________________________________________________________
For more information on our English edition, please visit
http://MondeDiplo.com/
To subscribe to our free "dispatch" mailing-list, send an
(empty) e-mail to:
dispatch-on@monde-diplomatique.fr
To unsubscribe from this list, send an (empty) e-mail to:
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English language editorial director: Wendy Kristianasen
_______________________________________________________
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © 1997-2002 Le Monde diplomatique
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 11 Sep 2002 22:55:23 +0530
From: Shuddhabrata Sengupta <shuddha@sarai.net>
Subject: Call for Contributions to Sarai Reader 03 : "Shaping Technologies"
Call for Contributions to Sarai Reader 03 : "Shaping Technologies"
Sarai, (www.sarai.net) an interdisciplinary research and practice programme
on the city and the media, at the Centre for the Study of Developing
Societies and Waag Society (www.waag.org), a center for culture and
technology based in Amsterdam, invites contributions to Sarai Reader 03 :
Shaping Technologies,
We also invite proposals to initiate and moderate discussions on the themes
of the Sarai Reader 03 on the Reader List
(http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list) with a view to the
moderator(s) editing the transcripts of these discussions for publication in
the Sarai Reader 03.
The Sarai Reader is an annual publication produced jointly by Sarai/CSDS
(Delhi) and the Waag Society (Amsterdam).Previous Readers have included :
'The Public Domain' : Sarai Reader 01,
2001(http://www.sarai.net/journal/reader1.html)
and 'The Cities of Everyday Life' : Sarai Reader 02, 2002,
(http://www.sarai.net/journal/reader2.html ).
The Sarai Reader series aims at bringing together original, thoughtful,
critical, reflective, well researched and provocative texts and essays by
theorists, practitioners and activists, grouped under a core theme that
expresses the interests of the Sarai in issues that relate media, information
and society in the contemporary world. The Sarai Readers have a wide
international readership.
Editorial Collective for Sarai Reader 03 : Ravi Vasudevan, Ravi Sundaram,
Jeebesh Bagchi, Monica Narula & Shuddhabrata Sengupta (Sarai) and Geert
Lovink & Marleen Strikker (The Waag Society)
___________________________________________________________
The Concept - Shaping Technologies
Today, technology is second nature to us. If the landscape of earlier times
could be ideally represented by images of naturally occurring objects, the
landscape of the contemporary is one that can only be imagined as being
peopled by machines. The 'nature' of our times is technological - we are
embodied, articulated, located and governed by the machines we make to extend
our lives, bodies and faculties. We shape the technologies that surround us
and the technologies that surround us shape the contour of our lives. This is
what we mean by the term 'Shaping Technologies', which as a term with two
senses suggests both a subjective, social appropriation of technological
creativity, as well as the impact of technologies on society and life in
general.
One may even say that the technological ubiquity has gone so far as to make
it nearly impossible for us to reflect upon technology as a phenomena
separate from the general conditions of global urban life. We are what we
work, play and think with, and today we work, play and think with our
machines. We are users, inventors, practitioners, artists, hackers and
artisans who work with technologies; we are technology's consumers and users,
we are hobbyists, enthusiasts and addicts just as we are critics, prophets,
and analysts. We are masters, slaves, victims and rebels of technology. No
one remains untouched by the 'machine'.
Yet, we do not have an adequate language with which to understand and
articulate the presence of technology in culture, society and in politics. We
are accustomed to construct utopian and dystopic technological imaginaries,
even as we neglect the task of a sober and considered reflection of the
ethical and cognitive dilemmas that the presence of technologies in everyday
life confront us with. And even as technology becomes increasingly
ubiquitous, even as it touches wider populations, even as an immersion in
technoculture becomes the condition of the contemporary moment, it becomes
simultaneously the discursive monopoly of experts and specialists, or of
geeks and hobbyists, far removed from the concerns that animate scholars,
public intellectuals, and the average curious person. Technology is the
underpinning and the shadow of the public domain. Technology is ubiquitous,
yet discursively invisible.
Sarai Reader 03 seeks to contribute to the termination of this discursive
vacuum by asking what other imaginary space there may be, besides the
imperative to consume, the irrepressible desire to shop for the next gadget
that comes our way, and the whine of the perennial victim of the machine,
with which we can envision technology's presence in our lives ?
In this third volume in the Sarai Reader series we will also look into
alternative approaches towards technology, strategies to revitalize forgotten
concepts (and their authors), re-readings of past debates and anticipations
of future ones. We will weigh the utopian visions against the dystopic
nightmares, perhaps to arrive at assessments that suggest sobriety and a
'cool' consideration of the cold touch of the machine, as well as of the heat
of the fuel that animates it.
If you feel these issues and questions are of interest to you. If your
practice, thought, curiosities, research or creative activity has impelled
you to think about some of these issues, we invite you to contribute texts to
Sarai Reader 03 : Shaping Technologies.
The Reader will have the following broad areas of interest:
I. Technologies of Urbanism : Making the City
II. The Everyday Experience of Technology
III. Philosophies of Technology - Being the Machine
IV. Technologies in History
IV. Imagining Technologies - The Machine in Art, Literature and Cinema
V. Technologies of the Body
VI. Gender and Technology
VII. Tactical Tech : Technologies of Power and Resistance
VIII. D.I.Y (Do it Yourself)
IX. Social Software
X. Technology and the Environment
XI. Networks and Transmissions
There will also be three additional special sections:
i. Selections from the Reader List on the violence in Gujarat in
February/March 2002,
ii. Design, Technology and the Urban Info Sphere : Case Studies from Amsterdam
iii. The book (like Readers 1 and 2) will end with the Alt/Option section,
which offers manifestos and alternative perspectives
_______________________________________
GUIDELINES FOR SUBMISSIONS
Word Limit : 1500 - 4000 words
1.Submissions may be scholarly, journalistic, or literary - or a mix of
these, in the form of essays, papers, interviews, online discussions or
diary entries. All submission, unless specifically solicited, must be in
English only.
2.Submissions must be sent by email in rich text format (rtf) or star-office
documents. Articles may be accompanied by black and white photographs or
drawings submitted in the tif format.
3.We urge all writers, to follow the Chicago Manual of Style, (CMS) in terms
of footnotes, annotations and references. For more details about the CMS,
please see the Florida State University web page on CMS style documentation
at : http://www.fsu.edu/~library/guides/chicago.html
4.All contributions should be accompanied by a three/four line text
introducing the author.
5.All submissions will be read by the editorial collective of the Sarai
Reader 02 before the final selection is made. The editorial collective
reserves the right not to publish any material sent to it for publication in
the Sarai Reader on stylistic or editorial grounds. All contributors will be
informed of the decisions of the editorial collective vis a vis their
contribution after December 1, 2002.
6.Copyright for all accepted contributions will remain with the authors, but
Sarai and the Waag Society reserve indefinitely the right to place any of the
material accepted for publication on the public domain in print or electronic
forms, and on the internet.
7.Accepted submissions will not be paid for, but authors are guaranteed a
wide international readership. The Reader will be published in print,
distributed in India and internationally, and will also be uploaded in a pdf
form on to the Sarai website. All contributors whose work has been accepted
for publication will receive two copies of the Reader.
Last date for submission - December 1st 2002.
(but please write as soon as possible to the editorial collective with a
brief outline/abstract, not more than one page, of what you want to write
about - this helps in designing the content of the reader)
We expect to have the reader published by mid February 2003.
________________________________________
Please send in your outlines and abstracts
1. (for articles) to
Shuddhabrata Sengupta, Co Ordinator, Sarai Reader 03 Editorial Collective
(shuddha@sarai.net)
2. (for proposals to moderate online discussions on the Reader List) to
Monica Narula, List Administrator, the Reader List
(monica@sarai.net)
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 13 Sep 2002 05:38:24 +0900
From: OZAKI Tetsuya <ozaki@blue.ocn.ne.jp>
Subject: ___ R E A L T O K Y O MAIL MAGAZINE Vol. 95___
R E A L T O K Y O MAIL MAGAZINE
_____9_013_2002_Fri_vol.95___________ http://www.realtokyo.co.jp/
[This Week's Index]
(1) Tokyo Editors' Diary
Sugatsuke Masanobu (Composite) part II, vol. 1
(2) RealCities
From Gateshead, England: The Opening of BALTIC
(3) Event Pick of the Week
Onedotzero_nippon
This week's RT Picks:
art+cinema+music+stage+design+town = 51 events
including 11 new ones!
Plus new entries on our 'book/disk' page.
Check them out!
http://www.realtokyo.co.jp/
===============================================================
(1) Tokyo Editors' Diary
===============================================================
Sugatsuke Masanobu (Composite) part II, vol. 1
August 19
I'm meeting UA for an interview that will go into Composite volume 27 (on sale
from 9/10), the first issue we're publishing in six months. After the
preview screening
of the movie "Mizu no onna," in which she plays her first leading role, we
exchanged
impressions on our mobile phones quite extensively, so I didn't expect the
conversation to be too long, but once we met there were again many things
to talk
about. We were planning to do the interview right after photo shootings for
her new
album "Dorobo," which were scheduled to finish at 3pm. We appeared at the
location
in time, but it wasn't until 8 that we could start our photo shooting, and
then finally sit
down for a long interview. Since we were both tired from the long studio
work we
decided to do that at Higashiyama in Meguro while having dinner. Through the
movie she seems to have increased her self-confidence, so I'm sitting and
listening
to a stoically relaxed UA. "I can't live while lieing to myself, and
programmed harmony
just kills me" she states, and as a clumsy editor I can perfectly
understand her.
Read more at:
http://www.realtokyo.co.jp/en/diary/0010-henshucho.htm
================================================================
(2) RealCities
================================================================
From Gateshead, England: The Opening of BALTIC
On July 13 BALTIC, The Centre for Contemporary Art opened its doors in
Gateshead
in England's north. The museum, which doesn't have an own collection, but
is planning
conceptual exhibition events and artist-in-residence programs, borrows its
name from
the Baltic fleet. In this season where the sun doesn't fully disappear
before midnight,
director Sune Nordgren finally cut the ribbon and opened the museum to the
public
at 0:00a.m. Masses of impatiently waiting people had been queueing up for
several
hours, and the rush continued until the morning.
Read more at:
http://www.realtokyo.co.jp/english/cities/f_cities.htm
===============================================================
(3) Event Pick of the Week
===============================================================
Onedotzero_nippon
Originally started in the UK, this worldwide biggest digital movie festival
is held for
the sixth time this year. Here in Tokyo it's shown for the first time,
though, and for this
special occasion a number of creators from overseas are coming to town. Besides
shorts made with computer graphics, the varied programme ranges from music
promotion videos, artistic motion graphics and commercial spots, to intro
movies
from PlayStation 2 games, etc. Participants from Japan include Teevee Graphics,
Devil Robots, and others, and one of the highlights will be the "Audio Sex"
presentation by a unit made up of top creators Ukawa Naohiro and Tei Towa.
Without doubt, Yurakucho is the place for video artists, VJs, and gamers to
go this
weekend.
- --Editorial Staff
http://www.realtokyo.co.jp/event_cgi/ev_viewE.cgi?1,1832
- ---------------------------------------------------------------
Next week on RT:
- - Tokyo Editors' Diary
- - Out of Tokyo
- - Presents
and more$B!D(B
- ---------------------------------------------------------------
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for you, we rely on your feedback. Please send us opinions or
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info@realtokyo.co.jp.
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http://www.realtokyo.co.jp/
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------------------------------
Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2002 16:03:50 -0700
From: "Bureau of Public Secrets" <knabb@slip.net>
Subject: Rexroth's Poetic Anarchism
Excerpts from Kenneth Rexroth's "The Dragon and the Unicorn" are now online
at http://www.bopsecrets.org/rexroth/poems/1940s.dragon.htm .
The book-length poem recounts Rexroth's 1949 journey through France and
Italy. Anecdotes about his encounters and experiences are interwoven with
commentaries from diverse and often deliberately clashing perspectives --
political, philosophical, historical, aesthetic, mystical -- including some
of the most incisive and scathing radical critiques in Rexroth's work.
For example:
It is unfortunately
The case, that the world in which
We live is dominated
By two collectivities
Whose whole force is exerted
To depersonalize and
Quantify persons -- the State
And the Capitalist System.
If a person is that which
By definition can never
Be added to anything else,
The State is precisely the
Mechanism by which persons
Are reduced to integers.
The State exists to add and
Subtract, divide and multiply
Population units. Its
Components have no more and
No less reality than the
Mathematics of the battlefield.
Similarly, Capitalism
Views all existence in the form
Of commodities. Nothing
Is valuable except to
The extent it will bring a
Profit on the market. Again,
The human being is reduced
To a special commodity,
Labor power, his potential
To make other commodities.
Labor power on the market,
Firepower on the battlefield,
It is all one, merely two
Aspects of the same monster.
The parliaments of the State
Are only highly ritualized
Capitalist market places.
The battlefield is only
The most advanced form of trade.
The equities of the State
Are only devices for
Postponing the decisions
Of violence to a more
Opportune moment. The ballot
Is a paper substitute
For the billy, the bullet,
And the bayonet.
* * * * * * *
Sexual fulfillment was robbed
Of all meaning. The sex act became
A nervous stimulant and
Anodyne outside of the
Productive process, but still
Necessary to it as an
Insatiable, irrational
Drive, without which the struggle
For meaningless abstractions,
Commodities, would collapse.
This is the ultimate in
Human self alienation.
This is what the revolution
Is about. In a society
Ruled only by the cash nexus
The sexual relationship
Must be a continual struggle
Of each to obtain security
>From the other, a kind of
Security, a mass of
Commodities, which has no
Meaning for love, and today in
America, no meaning at all.
The greater the mass of things,
The greater the insecurity.
The security of love lies
In the state of indwelling rest.
It is its own security.
This is what free love is, freedom
>From the destructive power
Of a society coerced
Into the pursuit of insane
Objectives....
Against it are arrayed all
The consequences of a
Vast systematic delusion,
Without intelligence or
Mercy or even real being,
But with the power to kill.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Bureau of Public Secrets website features "The Joy of Revolution" and
other writings by Ken Knabb (recently collected in the book "Public
Secrets"), Knabb's translations from the Situationist International (the
notorious avant-garde group that helped trigger the May 1968 revolt in
France), and the Rexroth Archive (texts by and about the great writer and
social critic Kenneth Rexroth).
BUREAU OF PUBLIC SECRETS
http://www.bopsecrets.org
"Making petrified conditions dance by singing them their own tune."
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 18 Sep 2002 07:41:37 +0000
From: "anarcho sando" <anarcho_sando@hotmail.com>
Subject: en) no border issue of green pepper wants submissions
**"borders" articles call out**
Date :
Tue, 17 Sep 2002 17:34:13 +0200
Reply Reply All Forward Delete Put in Folder...InboxSent
MessagesDraftsTrash Can Printer Friendly Version
Hi there,
The next edition of Green Pepper, due out late November is on "Borders"
Please find below an initial (and very broad) brainstorm of article ideas,
we
welcome your contribution, ideas, articles, testimonies, cartoons, pics and
hands up to take on any of the ideas that follow!
Cheers,
Alex + Kevin
http://www.squat.net/cia/gp
PS Feel free to forward to any other people you think might be interested!
_____________________________________
Green Pepper ‘No Borders’ Edition – Brain storm, broad ideas…. Let’s go!!
Borders, Migration and Freedom of Movement…. Some ideas - -
16 articles + intro + other section at end = 32 pages [30 with calendar]
(dependent on money we could do more).
Intro/editorial - Ag + Kev
Throughout mag in boxes:: resistance and event profiles:
Borderhack, Mexico/USA, bordercamps Europe, Woomera etc
Sans-papiers self organisation, not simply victims with no agency,
The Voice, Roma Caravan, inside Woomera, (200 words)
** Background: the big three pager!– who moves? Why? How is movement
controlled? Why? A few stats, numbers and figures, maps and so on
Borderpanic – where did this issue shoot out from, why are we always now
talking about migration, people have always moved – politics of fear and
nationalism in an era of erosion of nation states…
Info boxes:: UNHCR – critique? – Environmental refugees not recognised as a
genuine refugee / Laws – ie Germany, Schengan treaty, Fortress Europe etc
Good refugees/bad refugees – genuine non genuine
Map and story of journey - ie from Afghanistan to Australia – how do people
move
** Anti-globalisation movement and no borders, to disassociate from the
right…
To compare the free movement of goods and capital to that of people
Borders of self and of identity, community identity, gender, sexuality
nationalism (see football teams/high school/towns/countries competitiveness)
+ activist community,
Ie WE ARE WE BECAUSE WE ARE NOT THEY
How can a borderless world also encompass / deal with indigenous
dispossession and redress colonial histories?
Racism/Sexism convergence. Tensions within communities – see cross over
camp, incidents in movements in Europe
** State fuelled paranoia and borderpanic – what are they getting out of
it?
Ie aust; cheaper house people in community, UK people think % of migration
is much higher than it actually is etc
Glossary of disinformation, boat people, people smugglers, swamping,
flooding, etc
** Anomalies/contradictions/challenges to/with having a world without
borders homogeneity/ true multiculturalism::
What do we really mean when we say No Borders?
How do we actually get to creating a borderless world?
** Electronic borders – the internet, surveillance, SIS etc – ASCII
Surveillance, documentation, papers, databases, SIS, etc
Women and migration, prositution, trade in women
** What can you do? Campaigns, local work, visiting, actions, etc
Contradiction of where you do actions (local with migrant
communities/detention centres etc) and theories (broad anti-state etc)
** Roma – history of nomadic peoples, way they were portrayed – via Andrea
Activists and borders – testimonies
Borders/invasion/independence struggles/ post colonial contradications/
borders and sovereignity:
West Papua, - Marni ?
Indig – redraft of Eve’s woomera article? / Tony Birch
[Palestine, India-Pakistan-Kashmir-Bangladesh, Angola]
** Bordercamping is it just the new sexy thing? Evaluation/discuss of
strasbourg (Darren’s article / Paul) collage quotes style?
** Profiting from encarceration – look at the corps involved – Group 4,
Wackenhut, KLM, Lufthansa, Hotel Ibis etc – Adam CEO/Corporate Watch
Cartography – reproduce parts of the Biopolice maps – contact tangente uni
Forced migration – resettlement programs – see Indonesia and Javanese,
Palestine/Isreal settlements
Refugee camps, Afganistan/Pakistan border - music to the camps project Edin.
Bordercrossing art project - banff?
Personal testimonies
Look at:
No-one is Illegal book
No Nonsense Guide to International Migration
Borderpanic reader
Woomera scrapbook
http://www.noborder.org
http://antimedia.net/xborder
- --
We fell in love in the wreckage, shouted out songs in the uproar, danced
joyfully in the strongest shackles they could find ... we built castles in
the sky from the ruins of hell on earth ... crimethinc.com
_________________________________________________________________
MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos:
http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 19 Sep 2002 20:46:48 +0100
From: matthew fuller <matt@axia.demon.co.uk>
Subject: variant issue 15 (for announcer)
VARIANT, ISSUE 15, Summer 2002 http://www.variant.org.uk
..the free, independent, arts magazine. In-depth coverage in the
context of broader social, political & cultural issues.
[click on the links below to go to a text version (html) or PDF of the
full article]
A Lovely Curiosity, Raymond Roussel -- William Clark
In-depth look at the little know yet highly influential French, literary
figure and his complex methodology for writing.
text
http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~variant/15texts/Roussel.html
pdf
http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~variant/pdfs/issue15/William_Clark_15.pdf
Asian Alternative Space -- Andrew Lam
Based in Hong Kong, Lam examines artist-run spaces, their
associated cultural production and impact on developments of
identity within Beijing, Hong Kong, Singapore, Seoul, Macau,
Taipei.
text
http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~variant/15texts/asianalt.html
pdf
http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~variant//pdfs/issue15/Andrew_Lam_15.pdf
Gareth Williams -- Ed Baxter
Obituary of founder member of This Heat, whose recalcitrant
experimentation led them far away from mainstream success.
text
http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~variant/15texts/williams.html
pdf
http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~variant/pdfs/issue15/Ed_Baxter_15.pdf
Dodgy Analogy -- John Barker
Thorough de-mystification and counter to the post-modernist use of
natural science analogies in (amongst other things) the
depoliticisation of inequality.
text
http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~variant/15texts/dodgy.html
pdf
http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~variant/pdfs/issue15/John_Barker_15.pdf
An American Nurse & Humanitarian Aid Worker in Ramallah
"How long can the rest of the world watch this, doing nothing?"
text
http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~variant/15texts/hell.html
pdf
http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~variant/pdfs/issue15/Ramallah_15.pdf
Tales of the Great Unwashed -- Ian Brotherhood
A thoughtful and provocative reflection on the social poverty, fear
and intimidation indicative of the casual labour, service industry
economy.
[Financial support in publishing a book of Ian Brotherhoods work
sought - suggestions of sources of funding appreciated.]
text
http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~variant/15texts/tales.html
pdf
http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~variant/pdfs/issue15/Ian_Brotherhood_15.pdf
Muslims and the West after September 11 -- Pervez Hoodbhoy
Based on a speech at the Center for Inquiry, International
Conference, Atlanta, Georgia, historical account and secular,
humanist response to Islamic Fundamentalism and US Imperialism.
text
http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~variant/15texts/after911.html
pdf
http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~variant/pdfs/issue15/Pervez_Hoodbhoy_15.pdf
Desire and kind of Playfulness -- Copenhagen Free University,
Exchange
Following in a long tradition of self- worker-educational groups, the
CFU question the exclusion of personal knowledge, experience and
desire in the phantasmic 'knowledge economy'.
text
http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~variant/15texts/CFU.html
pdf
http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~variant/pdfs/issue15/CAE_15.pdf
Artists Initiatives in Moscow -- Gillian McIver
An overview of artist-run spaces in Moscow. Despite their surface
similarities to such spaces in western europe, the commitment to
experimentation and differences in celebrity status remain stark.
text
http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~variant/15texts/artistsmoscow.html
pdf
http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~variant/pdfs/issue15/Gillian_McIver_15.pdf
Collective Cultural Action -- Critical Art Ensemble
From artists to activists, how people collectively organise to
overcome alienation and skewed power relations to achieve
concrete results.
text
http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~variant/15texts/cae.html
pdf
http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~variant/pdfs/issue15/CAE_15.pdf
Zine and Comic reviews -- Mark Pawson
Strange print creations from Pawsons recent trip to Japan.
text
http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~variant/15texts/ZineComics.html
pdf
http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~variant/pdfs/issue15/Mark_Pawson_15.pdf
The March: The story of the Historic Scottish Hunger March -- Harry
cShane
First hand account of a little known, momentous event in labor
history. A true fight for social justice against poverty.
text
http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~variant/15texts/TheMarch.html
pdf
http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~variant/pdfs/issue15/Harry_McShane_15.pdf
Letters
Following a refusal of Variants right to appeal, responses to the
Scottish Arts Councils legal assault on Variant and their false
assurances that their judgments are based solely on artistic merit.
text
http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~variant/15texts/letters.html
pdf
http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~variant/pdfs/issue15/letters_15.pdf
All articles, Variant, issue 15
text
http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~variant/15texts/15text.html
pdf
http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~variant/pdfs/issue15/issue15.pdf
- -----------------------------
Variant is posted 3 times a year
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with UNSUBSCRIBE in the header.
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ADVERTISING OPPORTUNITY:
Variant issue 16 will cover the period December 2002 to March
2003
contact Paula Larkin on +44(0)141 3339522 to advertise.
Full advertising details at: http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~variant/ads.html
- -----------------------------
A fully accessible archive of back issues is freely available at the
Variant web site
http://www.variant.org.uk
Magazine Subscription details can be found at-
http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~variant/subs.html
Variant
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http://www.variant.org.uk
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 17 Sep 2002 21:28:57 -0700
From: John Jordan <artactivism@gn.apc.org>
Subject: argentinas popular rebellion ( new publication )
Que Se Vayan Todos: Argentina's Popular Rebellion. Part 1 and 2.
An eyewitness account of the financial meltdown and ongoing
grassroots rebellion.
A NEW edition, with an update, of the beautiful 16 page tabloid size
publication, complete with fantastic full page images of the popular
rebellion in Argentina has just been produced. If you would like
copies write to quesevayantodos@gn.apc.org - stating how many you
would like, and your address. We have access to some free postage (
from the UK ) and the copies themselves are free, but dont go
overboard as we ran out of copies very quickly last time.
( for those who already read part 1 - just skip email to part 2)
sorry for cross posting
The full text including part 2.
Que Se Vayan Todos: Argentina's Popular Rebellion. Part 1 and 2.
An eyewitness account of the financial meltdown and ongoing
grassroots rebellion.
Part 1
Routines and Rebellions
15th Feb. 2002
Your tickets are invalid," says the heavily lipsticked agent at
theVarig airlines check-in counter in southern Brazil. Her eyes flick
to the next person in line. We protest vehemently, as we've had no
problem using the tickets. She is not impressed, and calls for her
manager, who explains to us that Varig no longer recognizes the
reciprocity of any tickets issued through Aerolineas Argentina. "They
cannot be trusted now," she informs us gravely, showing us the memo
announcing the new policy. "We no longer do business with them." This
is our first experience of the rippling effects of the Argentinean
financial crisis.
At the Aerolineas Argentina ticket counter, the agent is
friendly, and seems a bit embarrassed. He books us tickets on the
next flight to Buenos Aires. His demeanor suggests that of a man who
does not know if he will have a job tomorrow. We board the plane,
hoping that the massive layoffs and budget cuts have not reached air
traffic control, aerospace engineering, safety inspection, and other
related sectors. We arrive safely, get ourselves a cheap hotel, and
bleary-eyed, head out for a coffee.
In the corner of the cafe a television with the volume down
is tuned into the Cronica channel - a uniquely Argentinean phenomenon
- - non-stop live trashy "news," seemingly unedited, with unbelievably
bad and erratic camera work, and featuring the same lone reporter who
seems to pop up all over town at random. Our introduction to Cronica
is "live and direct" scenes from the beach, complete with close-up
shots of thongs which zoom out and reveal beach volleyball games and
languid sunbathers. There's a massive social rebellion going on in
this country, and the news is live and direct from the beach!
After about 20 minutes of beach footage, it cuts to the news
studio. Two "presenters" appear, in the form of shockingly
pink-haired puppets! This is beyond ridiculous, here we are,
desperate for news of the rebellion, and all we can get is puppet
shows and thongs. After some "live and direct" from the local
football team's practice, we finally are rewarded with images of
people banging pots and pans while invading the lobby of a bank. We
quickly drink up our coffee, ask the waiter how to get to the
financial district, jump on a bus, and arrive there in minutes.
Financial districts look much the same all over the world,
whether in the City of London, New York, or Frankfurt, but here in
Buenos Aires there is one major difference - huge corrugated sheets
of steel cover many of the bank headquarters, especially the foreign
ones, like Citibank, HSBC, and Lloyds. Gone are the grand entrance
halls; the prestigious shiny surfaces of glass and marble are hidden
behind blank facades of grey steel, and the only access is through
tiny doors cut into the sheet metal, through which suited figures
pass, heads bowed, entering these fortresses as if banking has become
a secretive, clandestine activity.
The strong smell of wet paint hangs in the air, fresh
graffiti covers the steel shuttering and walls, saying "ladrones," or
thieves. The action can't be far away. We split up and scout the
area, listening for the clang of metal upon metal, the ineffable
noise that has become the soundtrack to this rebellion, but hear
nothing, find nothing. It seems that we are too late.
Economic Freefall
We've arrived on a Friday. Every Friday night since mid-December last
year, there has been a massive cacerolazo in Buenos Aires, when the
people converge in the political center of the city, the Plaza de
Mayo, and create an enormous racket by banging on cacerolas, or
saucepans. These huge cacerolazos developed spontaneously on the 19th
of December 2001, the day when the uprising exploded, after
smoldering in the provinces for several years, and now involving just
about every sector of Argentinean society.
Argentina suffered two and a half decades of International
Monetary Fund-(IMF) backed "free-market reforms," which meant
privatizing everything: water, telephone systems, postal services,
railways, electricity - you name it - even the zoo was privatized.
When the Asian and Russian markets crashed in 1998, foreign
investment dried up in the so-called "emerging markets." Argentina
was hit badly, a major recession struck, and foreign lenders asked
for their money back, on time.
According to the IMF, the only way the Argentinean government
could repay the $132 billion debt, some of which dated from the
military dictatorship, was by making more cuts in social spending,
especially as many people, sick of political corruption, had stopped
paying their taxes. Pensions, unemployment benefits, health care, and
education all were cut drastically, and all state employees had their
salaries slashed by 13%. It was the same old story repeated across
the world - as countries are forced into deeper and deeper debt, the
IMF strip mines their economies for the benefit of foreign banks and
bond traders.
In fact, it was the bond markets, unsatisfied with the pace
of the austerity plans, who proved to be even harsher task masters
than the IMF. Unlike the IMF, they never bothered to send delegations
to negotiate, they simply jacked up interest rates on debt issuances,
in some instances from 9% to 14% in a fortnight.
Now, after four years of recession, one out of every five
Argentineans is unemployed, and some economists say this could soon
double. 40% of the population is now living below the poverty line,
and another 2000 people fall below it every day. Hospitals are
running out of basic supplies like bandages and syringes, schools are
shutting down because teachers aren't being paid, child mortality and
hunger is on the rise, and this is all occurring in what once was one
of the wealthiest countries in the world, for decades considered the
great success story of neoliberal development in the "developing"
world, the star pupil of the "Washington Consensus," and the main
advocate for free trade in the region.
As the recession worsened, Argentinean stock plummeted, and
the unpopular austerity measures became increasingly vicious.
Protests spread further across the country. Things climaxed in
December 2001 when, grasping for straws, the government decided to
try a complicated re negotiation of its debt repayments. Fearful that
the entire economic house of cards was going to come tumbling down
and that the currency would be devalued, thus wiping out their life
savings, the middle classes panicked and withdrew about $135 billion
from their bank accounts.
Fearing that a run on the banks would sink the economy, the detested
finance minister, Domingo Cavallo, announced sweeping restrictions
limiting the amount of money Argentineans could withdraw from their
accounts. Known as the corralito, these measures included a monthly
limit of $1000 on cash withdrawals in addition to caps on off-shore
transfers. With all the facets of the crisis interlocking, the
economy was effectively paralyzed.
The IMF freaked out, due to the banking restrictions and the
debt repayment plan, which would severely impact foreign banks, as
they own 40% of Argentina's debt. They refused to lend any more
money, and within weeks Argentina defaulted on its loans, the first
time a country had done so in years. From this moment the economy was
in free fall. On the 13th of December, a general strike called by
major unions brought the country to a grinding halt for 24 hours. Six
days later the popular rebellion exploded into the streets, where it
remains today.
The Tin Pot Insurection
December the 19th was the turning point, the day when the Argentinean
people said "enough!" The stage was set the day before, when people
began looting shops and supermarkets so they could feed their
families. The president, Fernando De La Rua, panicked. Twelve years
ago, major looting toppled the government, and now, within the
Argentinean collective memory, looting is linked to the collapse of
regimes. De La Rua declared a state of emergency, suspending all
constitutional rights, and banning meetings of more than three
people. That was the last straw. Not only did it bring back traumatic
memories of the seven year military dictatorship which killed over
30,000 people, but also it meant that the state was taking away the
last shred of dignity from a hungry and desperate population - their
freedom.
On the evening of December 19th, our friend Ezequiel was on
the phone with his brother who lives on the other side of Buenos
Aires. They were casually chatting, when his brother suddenly said,
"Hang on, can you hear that noise?" Ezequiel strained to hear a kind
of clanging sound coming through the receiver." Yes, I can hear
something on your side of the city but nothing here." They continued
talking, and then Ezequiel paused, and said, "Wait, now I can hear
something in my neighborhood, the same sound...." He ran to the
window.
People were standing on their balconies banging saucepans,
were coming out onto the sidewalks banging pots; like a virulent
virus of hope, the cacerolazo, which began as a response to the state
of emergency, had infected the entire city. Before the president's
televised announcement of the state of emergency was over, people
were in the streets disobeying it. Over a million people took part in
Buenos Aires alone, banging their pots and pans and demanding an end
to neoliberal policies and corrupt governments. That night the
finance minister resigned, and over the next 24 hours of street
protest, plainclothes policemen killed seven demonstrators in the
city, while 15 more were killed in the provinces. The president
resigned shortly thereafter, and was evacuated from the presidential
palace by helicopter.
Within a fortnight four more governments fell. Argentina was
now set on a major high-speed collision course, with the needs and
desires of its people on one side, and the demands of the IMF, the
inept government, and global capitalism on the other.
Rivers of Sound
15th Feb. 2002
Our friends tell us to meet them for tonight's cacerolazo in the cafe
of the Popular University of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo. The place
is an enormous social centre, right opposite the national congress
building, and is run by the well-known mothers of the disappeared,
whose courageous actions brought to the attention of the world the
mass disappearances during the military dictatorship between 1976 and
1983.
Surrounded by shelves crammed with books, journals, and
newspapers documenting radical Latin American political struggles, we
drink the quintessential Argentinean drink of health and friendship,
yerba mate, an extraordinary herbal infusion that increases energy
and mental alertness and is believed to contain all of the vitamins
necessary to sustain life. The warm drink is served in a gourd with a
silver straw and is passed around and shared between friends. No
political meeting in Argentina is complete without mate, and some of
us wonder whether this seemingly innocuous green twiggy tea is the
secret ingredient behind this country's inspirational rebellion.
Night falls, and before long we begin to hear the repetitive
rhythm of pot-and-pan banging drift across the square. A small crowd
of around fifty people has congregated in the street - they are
young, old, rich, poor, smartly dressed, scruffy, but all are armed
with spoons, forks, and a whole variety of metal objects to hit:
cooking pots, lids, kettles, Coke cans, car parts, biscuit tins, iron
bars, baking trays, car keys. The rhythm is high pitched and
monotonous, and above it people sing catchy tunes instead of dull
political chanting; often they include the key slogan of this
movement: que se vayan todos, they all must go, meaning that the
ENTIRE political class goes, every politician from every party, the
supreme court, the IMF, the multinational corporations, the banks -
everyone out so the people can decide the fate of this economically
crippled country themselves.
Our friend Eva tells us that the movement has lost some of
its momentum over the last few weeks. We admit to being surprised by
how small this crowd is - having imagined the cacerolazos to be
enormous. But as we're thinking this, we reach a crossroads. To our
right we see another crowd, perhaps twice as big as ours, coming
towards us, waving and cheering. We continue for a few more blocks,
and on the next street corner another stream of people flows out from
the underground station, singing and jumping up and down as it merges
with our group, another junction and yet more people come towards us.
We began as 50, grew to a hundred or more, then we were two
hundred, then five, then a thousand, two thousand, perhaps more.
Rivers of people pouring into each other, growing bigger and bigger,
rising to a roaring, banging torrent as we near the final
destination, the Plaza de Mayo, where the presidential palace, the
Pink House, stands protected behind police lines and barricades.
The Neighbourhoods Rise
Every week people make this pilgrimage, from every corner of Buenos
Aires, some of them coming as far as seven kilometres. They walk with
their asembleas populares, the neighborhood meetings which have
spontaneously sprouted up over the last few months in over 200
different neighborhoods in the city, and throughout the surrounding
provinces. These assemblies are rapidly becoming autonomous centres
of community participation. Most meet weekly (the more ambitious,
twice a week!), and all meet outside - in squares, parks, and even on
street corners.
Every Sunday there is an assembly of assemblies, an
inter-neighborhood plenary in a park, attended by over 4000 people
and often running for more than 4 hours. Spokespeople from rich,
poor, and middle class districts attend to report back on the work
and proposals of their local assemblies, share ideas, and debate
strategy for the following week's city-wide mobilizations.
The local assemblies are open to almost anyone, although one
assembly has banned bankers and party activists, and others have
banned the media. Some assemblies have as many as 200 people
participating, others are much smaller. One of the assemblies we
attended had about 40 people present, ranging from two mothers
sitting on the sidewalk while breast feeding, to a lawyer in a suit,
to a skinny hippie in batik flares, to an elderly taxi driver, to a
dreadlocked bike messenger, to a nursing student. It was a whole
slice of Argentinean society standing in a circle on a street corner
under the orange glow of sodium lights, passing around a brand new
megaphone and discussing how to take back control of their lives.
Every now and then a car would pass by and beep its horn in support,
and this was all happening between 8pm and midnight on a Wednesday
evening!
It all seemed so normal, and yet was perhaps the most
extraordinary radical political event I'd ever witnessed - ordinary
people seriously discussing self-management, spontaneously
understanding direct democracy and beginning to put it into practice
in their own neighborhoods. Multiply this by 200 in this city alone,
and you have the makings of an irresistible popular rebellion, a
grassroots uprising which is rejecting centralized political power.
As Roli, an accountant from the Almagro assembly said: "People reject
the political parties. To get out of this crisis requires real
politics. These meetings of common people on the street are the
fundamental form of doing politics."
Outside of the weekly meetings, the assemblies meet in
smaller committees, each one dedicated to a different local issue or
problem. Committees of health are common - with many local hospital
budgets slashed, there is an urgent need to develop alternatives to
the collapsing welfare system. Some are suggesting that people who
own their own homes withhold their property tax, and instead give
that money to the local hospitals. Many assemblies also have
alternative media committees, as there is a widespread critique of
the mainstream media's representation of the rebellion. It took a
large cacerolazo outside their head offices to get them to cover the
uprising more accurately. However, the spirit of distrust for any
enormous corporate entity remains at large, and local assemblies are
beginning to print their own news sheets, broadcast updates on local
radio stations, and put up web sites.
In addition to the innumerable meetings and the weekly
cacerolazo, the assemblies also organize local street parties and
actions. In one neighborhood, for example, the assembly organized
pickets to prevent the authorities from closing down a baker who
could not afford to pay his rent.
For many of the assembly participants, this is the first time
they have been involved in any form of grassroots mobilization in
their lives. By creating a space for people to listen to each other's
problems and desires for change, the assemblies have enabled people
to realize that their personal daily struggles are connected to other
people's problems, and that all roads eventually lead to a similar
source, whether it is the government, the banks, the IMF, or the
entire economic system itself. An elderly shopkeeper, whose
experience is representative of many participants, said "Never in my
whole life did I give a shit for anyone else in my neighborhood. I
was not interested in politics. But this time I realized that I have
had enough and I needed to do something about it."
For radical change to occur, transformation has to take place
in our minds as well as in social structures, and it is often on the
tongue through the tool of language that one can trace some of the
most radical shifts in consciousness. A beautiful illustration of
this is that out of the experience of the assemblies, a new form of
greeting has arisen. The traditional political leftist form of
greeting in Latin American culture, compañero, or comrade, has been
rejected in favor of a new form of address, vecino, or neighbor. It's
a simple trick of the tongue, but one which signifies a major shift
away from an authoritarian politics based on power and parties
towards a participatory politics made up of people and places.
Converging Currents
15th Feb. 2002
The raging torrent of sound finally arrives at the packed Plaza de
Mayo. The mouth of each avenue feeding into the square is flooded
with thousands of people cheering the arrival of each assembly.
Banner after banner passes by, some roughly painted and others
carefully lettered , but each bearing the neighborhood's name and the
time and place of the meeting.
The repetitive metallic rhythm fills the night. Some people
grow bored of hitting their pots and start to bang on lamposts or
railings, others pound on the barricade which splits the square in
half, behind which stand a symbolic row of riot policemen protecting
the Pink House. Singing of the movement's anthem breaks out
periodically, rising above the sound of the saucepans, voices crying,
"They all must go, not a single one should remain, Duhalde must go
back up his mother's cunt," sung with equal ebullience by elderly
women, youthful punks, unemployed refinery workers, and middle class
bankers.
Young kids are busy covering the walls with graffiti; hardly
a surface of this city remains that does not carry some phrase or
slogan of resistance. The outline of a coffin is drawn with the word
"politicians" inside; a ministry building proclaims "My saucepan is
not bullet proof;" the closed shutters of a shop declare "Popular
assemblies - go out into the streets and claim what is rightfully
yours."
In the Plaza de Mayo, people are incredibly open, happy to
talk with us, readily telling us stories, and repeatedly emphasizing
how important it is that we document their struggle and show it to
the world. The diversity of the crowd astonishes us - it seems that
every walk of life is represented, and while we struggle to grasp the
contradictions we perceive, we meet Pablo, a 30 year old employee of
Bank Boston, who tells us, "By day I must work as a capitalist, but
at night I'm a socialist. I've been a socialist for a long time,
since my father was disappeared when I was six years old." His father
was a university student of sociology, and was not particularly
political, but was dumped in the Río Plata all the same at age 22,
leaving behind an 18 year old wife and his six year old son.
It is this which is particularly poignant, the fact that
every one of these people who is over thirty is living with some
memory of the dictatorship, has lost some people from their immediate
family, (or at least knows someone who did), they know how bad things
can get, how disappearances serve to terrify a population in ways
that we, with only prisons and courts as official deterrence, can't
dream of. This popular collective memory seems to permeate every
aspect of this rebellion. Although the continuity of the lineage of
resistance has been severely damaged, people seem deeply committed to
doing the hard work of rebuilding a movement that was, until
recently, in shambles, a movement that was long lulled to sleep by
fearful memories not yet dulled by the passage of time, lulled to
sleep by neoliberal promises and privatized dreams, convinced that
without following the "rules of the market," the country was sure to
return to the dark days of dicatorship.
But not everyone is so sympathetic. "They had it coming," is
a constant refrain from their Uruguayan neighbors, "They thought that
they were European," and it's true that Buenos Aires feels much more
like Paris than like São Paolo. However, the seemingly first-world
status was propped up on credit and sustained by loans and a national
refusal to recognize the symptoms of imminent collapse. Upon
returning home, a Chicano activist tells us, "That's what's so
important about the uprising. It's Latin Americanizing Argentina.
Argentina is remembering where it is on the map."
Time after time when we asked people in their neighborhood
meetings, or during cacerolazos, "Do you think that people here have
participated in resistance movements in the past?" the answer was an
emphatic no, often with the postscript that the near-complete loss of
a generation through disappearance and exile meant that there were
few people in the country with any prior experience of organizing
much of anything.
Extraordinary to imagine, and contrary to everything we
thought we knew, to find that a people with so little foundation, so
little affinity for each other, coming from such a place of apathy
and individualism, followed by outrage and despair, could so rapidly
and intuitively develop forms of organization that are inherently
disobedient, inherently directly democratic, and inherently utopian.
Although this scene in the Plaza de Mayo is repeated every
Friday night, tonight's cacerolazo is special. For the first time,
the piqueteros, or literally, picketers, will be joining the
cacerolazo. The piqueteros are Argentina's militant movement of
unemployed workers, who launched this social rebellion five years ago.
The Power of the Piqueteros
Born out of frustration with the corruption and constant political
compromises of official unions and the failure of all political
parties to represent them, the piqueteros (the term refers to their
common tactic of road blockades) grew out of the excluded and
impoverished communities in the provinces. They are predominantly
unemployed workers who have been organizing autonomously in their
suburban barrios, the neighborhood districts which are key to many
Argentineans sense of place and identity.
Demanding jobs, food, education, and health care, they began
taking direct action in the mid 1990s, blocking highways across the
country. The action of blocking the flow of commodities was seen as
the key way to disrupt economic activity; as they were unemployed,
the option to strike was no longer available to them, but by blocking
roads they could still have an enormously disruptive effect on the
economic system. One of them explained, "We see that the way
capitalism operates is through the circulation of goods. Obstructing
the highways is the way to hurt the capitalist the most. Therefore,
we who have nothing - our way to make them pay the costs and show
that we will not give up and die for their ambitions, is to create
difficulties by obstructing the large routes of distribution."
"We block the streets. We make that part of the streets ours.
We use wood, tires, and petrol to burn," adds Alejandro
enthusiastically. He is a young piquetero who sports the red and
black bandanna of the MTD (Unemployed Worker's Movement) around his
neck and carries the three foot wooden club that has become one of
the symbols of this movement. "We do it like this because it is the
only way they acknowledge us. If we stood protesting on the sidewalk,
they would trample all over us."
These tactics have proved extraordinarily successful. Whole
families take part in the blockades, setting up collective kitchens
and tents in the middle of the street. Many of the participants are
young, and over 60% are women. Over the years this loosely federated
autonomous movement has managed to secure thousands of temporary
minimum wage jobs, food allowances, and other concessions from the
state. The police are often unable to clear the pickets because of
the popular support they receive. The highways often run beside
shantytowns on the edges of the cities, and there is always a threat
that any repression against the piqueteros would bring thousands of
people streaming out of these areas onto the road in support,
provoking much more serious confrontations.
In August 2001, a nation-wide mobilization of piqueteros
managed to shut down over 300 highways across the country. Over
100,000 unemployed workers participated and the economy was
effectively paralyzed. Thousands were arrested and five killed, but
the movement continued building momentum and has broken new ground in
its use of non-hierarchical grassroots forms of organizing.
The spirit of autonomy and direct democracy that exists in
the urban neighborhood assemblies, was practiced by the piqueteros
years before, as they share a similar healthy distrust of all
executive power. Each municipality has its own organization centered
around the neighborhoods, and all decision of policy and strategy are
decided at piquetero assemblies. If the government decides to
negotiate during an action, the piqueteros do not delegate leaders to
go off and meet with government officials, but instead, demand that
the officials come to the blockades so the people can all discuss
their demands, and collectively decide whether to accept or decline
any forthcoming offers. Too often they have seen leaders and
delegates contaminated, bought off, corrupted, or otherwise tainted
by power, and they have decided that the way around this is to
develop radical horizontal structures.
The primary demands are usually the creation of some
temporary state-funded jobs, and once these are secured, the
piqueteros decide collectively who gets these jobs, based on need and
time spent helping with blockades. If there are not enough to go
around, they rotate the jobs and share the wages. Other demands
normally follow: distribution of food parcels, liberation of some of
the hundreds of jailed piqueteros, public investment in local
infrastructure such as roads, health, education.
A friend shows us video footage of a passionate woman on last
week's piquetero blockade of an oil refinery. She sits behind a
barricade of burning tires, teeth missing beneath bright piercing
eyes, and declares, "Yes this is dangerous, of course it is
dangerous, but we need to fight, we cannot go home because no one is
going to bring anything to our doorstep...jobs, food for our
children, the schools that are now disappearing, the hospitals...you
see, if I get hurt now and I go to hospital, they don't even have the
bandages to help me. So if we stop the struggle, all the things will
disappear....we have to keep struggling."
In some parts of Argentina, the piqueteros have created
quasi-liberated zones, where their ability to mobilize is far more
influential than anything the local government is able to do. In
General Mosconi, formerly a rich oil town in the far north, which now
suffers with a more than 40% unemployment rate, the movement has
taken things into its own hands and is running over 300 different
projects, including bakeries, organic gardens, clinics, and water
purification.
What is extraordinary is that these radical actions,
practiced by some of the most excluded and impoverished people in
Argentina and using extremely militant tactics and imagery - burning
barricades, blocked roads, masked-up demonstrators wielding clubs -
have not alienated other sections of society. In fact, support comes
from all across the movement.
"When people get angry, they rule with blood, fire, and sweat,"
explains a young piquetero, wearing a "Punk's Not Dead" t-shirt
across his face as a mask. "We lost seven comrades in Plaza de Mayo.
They had no political banner or ideology, they were only young
Argentineans and wanted freedom. Then the government understood that
people wanted to kick them out.... Those that are up there in power
are very worried that they can no longer order us around as before.
Now people say 'enough.' We got together all social classes, from
workers to unemployed, to say 'enough is enough,' together with
people that have $100,000 and that can't take it out of the bank,
people that broke their backs working to save up, together with us
that maybe don't even have any food to eat. We are all Argentineans,
all under the same banner, and don't want this to happen again.." A
young piquetera named Rosa puts it more succinctly: "When women no
longer have the resources to feed their children, the government is
coming down, no matter what type of government it is."
La Lucha es una Sola
15th Feb. 2002
Tonight, we are privileged to watch the different currents of this
struggle as they converge in the Plaza de Mayo. Suddenly there is a
commotion in the corner of the square, which ripples through the
crowd as all eyes turn to witness the arrival of the piqueteros,
heroic, like a liberating army entering the city. Masked-up,
tattooed, and fierce, each carries a stick of iron or of wood, which
they hold together to form a cordon around themselves. They are
greeted with an enormous cheer as they flow into the square with an
energy and attitude which is forceful, raw, and urgent. Fireworks
explode over the crowd as the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo come
forward to greet them, their small elderly faces framed in the white
head scarf bearing the name of their disappeared children. Rising
above the crowd are the royal blue and white flags of the Mothers on
one side and the wooden clubs of the piqueteros on the other. Framed
by their trademark symbols, they embrace, and the night resonates
with the chant from the entire plaza, "Piquete y cacerolazo, la lucha
es una sola," picket and cacerolazo, the struggle is the same.
What we are seeing tonight is an incredible coming together
of differences, a convergence that crosses so many boundaries of
class and culture. It seems that every social sector involved in this
rebellion is beginning to work together, and support each other.
Revolutionary epochs are always periods of convergence - they are
moments when seemingly separate processes gather to form a socially
explosive crisis. Argentina is explosive right now - anything could
happen - it's an enormous social experiment that could well prove to
be the first great popular rebellion against capitalism of the 21st
century.
By four in the morning the square has emptied. The crowd has
slowly melted away, returning to their neighborhoods, and the city is
silent again. Clusters of young people sit around on the grass
talking, drinking, smoking - it could have been any Friday night out,
in any city, but for the people painting the plaza with the names of
those killed in December, or the small group huddled over a mobile
silk-screen printing press, taking turns printing dozens of t-shirts
with the simple slogan yo decido, I decide.
Politics Without Parties
16th Feb. 2002
We wake up the next morning to hear that the Pope has declared
Argentina to be in a "pre-anarchic" situation. He seems to be
following in the footsteps of President Duhalde, who in the first
week of February said, "Argentina is on the brink of anarchy." Weeks
later, the finance minister chimes in, telling a meeting of
international bankers, "Either we have continuity or anarchy." Funny
how that word gets thrown around whenever power begins to feel
threatened.
It seems that they are using "anarchy" to conjure up the
spectre of chaos, destruction, disobedience, nihilism, the collapse
of law and order. It is doubtful they are using it to describe the
authentic spirit of anarchism, which has spontaneously arisen on the
street corners, and in the parks and squares of Argentina: the simple
desire of people to live without rulers, remaining free to govern
themselves.
What is so refreshing is that this spirit has developed so
spontaneously, and that no one, except a few tired old politicos (and
the state of course), is using the word anarchism. This is perhaps
surprising, given that Argentina had the world's largest anarchist
movement at the dawn of the twentieth century. But no one needs
another "ism" from the 19th century, another word which imprisons and
fixes meaning, another word that seduces some people into the clarity
and comfort of a sectarian box, and leads others in front of a firing
squad or a show trial. Labels lead so easily to fundamentalism,
brands inevitably breed intolerance, delineating doctrines, defining
dogma, limiting the possibility of change.
From Rebellion to Reconstruction
There has been a clear pattern of rebellion against the IMF across
the world over the last decades. From Indonesia to Nigeria, and
Ecuador to Morocco, people have vented their desperation and anger
against austerity measures which have destroyed their livelihoods.
Riots have erupted, sometimes the military is sent in, occasionally
governments fall, but inevitably the IMF remains and austerity
programs continue. Nothing changes, except for the growth of poverty
and mistrust.
In the Buenos Aires Herald, we read a timely article about a
new computer game called "Playing Minister" in which you replace the
Brazilian economic minister, and are charged with keeping the country
on an even keel in the face of emerging market crises, domestic bank
collapses and currency devaluation. The game, according to its
creator, is designed to "test your skills at juggling interest rates,
controlling inflation, balancing budgets and managing debts."
Apparently managing the accompanying health care crises and the food
riots are not a part of the challenge when "Playing Minister."
During a recent interview, investigative journalist Greg
Palast revealed how useful these riots are to the IMF. Palast relayed
a conversation he had with Joseph Stiglitz, former chief economist of
the World Bank: "'...everywhere we go, every country we end up
meddling in, we destroy their economy and they end up in flames,'
said Stiglitz. And he was saying that he questioned this and he got
fired for it. But he was saying that they even kind of plan in the
riots. They know that when they squeeze a country and destroy its
economy, you are going to get riots in the streets. And they say,
'well that's the "IMF riot."' In other words, because you have
riots, you lose. All the capital runs away from your country, and
that gives the opportunity for the IMF to then add more conditions."
What the IMF doesn't expect and certainly doesn't want, is
for people to take things into their own hands, for them to shift
from resistance to reconstruction, from the desperation and rage of
rioting to the joy of creating alternatives. As the economic crisis
tears into the social fabric of Argentina, pushing more and more
people to the edge, the tension between hope and despair becomes a
conducive and creative space for change. Between laughter and tears
exists the space of optimism, the space of radical social
transformation.
For the workers of the Zanón ceramics factory in Neuque, it
is this spirit of optimism that has enabled them to occupy their
factory, one of Latin America's largest ceramics producers, for the
last six months, running it with astounding results. The company
stopped production last year, claiming that it was no longer
profitable and that they could no longer pay the workers' salaries.
Rather than join the growing ranks of Argentina's unemployed, the
workers decided to occupy the factory and keep the production lines
running themselves.
"We showed that with two days' worth of production, we were
able to pay the wages of all the workers for that month," explained
Godoy, one of the 326 workers involved in the occupation, thus
exposing the realities of where the company profits were really
going. The workers market the tiles at 60% of the previous prices and
have organized a network of young vendors who sell them in the city.
José Romero, a maintenance worker at the factory, adds, "This fight
has opened our eyes to a lot of things."
Like so many in this movement, they are critical of
hierarchical forms of organization. Godoy continues, "Now we have no
full-time officials. The officials work eight hours like everyone
else and we do our union activity after hours. The decisions are all
made at general assemblies of workers, not behind closed doors."
Photographs of the occupied factory show workers laughing and joking
as they pull tiles out of the kilns. In Ursula Le Guin's
extraordinary novel, The Dispossessed, which is perhaps the most
tangible and touching description of an anti-authoritarian society in
the English language, the word for work and play are the same. It
seems the workers of Zanón have begun to make this dream a reality.
Meanwhile, a mine in Río Turbío has been occupied, as well as
a textile factory in Buenos Aires, which recently opened its doors
for an International Women's Day festival. These worker-run endeavors
are setting examples for Argentinean factories everywhere, and
perhaps setting precedents on ways of doing business in the "new"
Argentina. One manufacturer, who was on the verge of bankruptcy,
called together his workers and told them that since he could no
longer pay their salaries he would instead turn over blankets
produced in the factory which the workers could either sell or take
to the local barter markets, to exchange for other commodities.
Perhaps he was worried by the example set at Zanón, or perhaps he is
beginning to recognize the futility of continuing business as usual
in such unusual times.
Popular Economics
16th Feb. 2002
It is in the barter markets where another extraordinary example of
necessity breeding ingenuity is enabling Argentineans to survive the
crisis. We visit the Trueque La Estación, or The Station Exchange,
that takes place twice a week in a four story community centre on the
outskirts of the city, where we are shown around by Ana, a shy
engineer wearing thick glasses. "The politicians have stolen
everything from the people, they want to control everybody," she
explains. "People come here because they don't want to be in the
system."
The place is bustling; we can hardly move through the jovial
throngs of people perusing the rows of tables offering goods and
services. You can buy anything here, or rather, you can exchange
anything here, from eggs to bumper stickers, miniskirts to spices,
cucumbers to crocheted toilet roll holders, as long as you use the
barter's own currency - small brightly colored notes which look a bit
like Monopoly money.
The system is simple: people take their products to the
market and sell them for barter credit. The vendor is then able to
use this to purchase products they need in return. If you have
nothing to exchange and want to participate, you must buy credits
from a bank with cash. But most people have something to trade, if
they are imaginative enough, and though these people are deeply
lacking in cash, they have a surplus of imagination.
Piles of bric-a-brac cover some tables, while others have
neat and ordered displays. A young woman sits behind a pile of
underwear reading Nietzsche while a mother carrying her child in a
sling does a swift trade in home baked pies. On one table Frederick
Forsyth novels jostle for space with the Argentinean equivalent of
Hello magazine and books about the Spanish Civil War. Huddled beside
the stairs, an indigenous Bolivian family chat over wooden boxes of
fresh vegetables. On the top floor a doctor in a pristine white coat
offers to take our blood pressure, while a dentist demonstrates some
procedure using a lurid pair of false teeth. People are having their
haircut in one room while manicures and tarot readings are offered in
another. There are classes in technical drawing as well as
immigration advisement. Occasionally the trueque radio station (which
"broadcasts" through a crackly PA system) announces new services
being offered.
These barter clubs began in 1995, when the recession began to
be felt. Since then they developed into a whole network and are now
known as nodos, meaning nodes, or points of concentration. Currently
there are several thousand nodos in existence throughout the country,
with well over two million people taking part. For many of them it
has become the only way of surviving the economic crisis.
As we leave the building we pass a stall holder with whom we
spoke during the afternoon, a strikingly tall, elegantly dressed
woman in her mid-forties. She waves good-bye, her dark eyes filled
with resigned sadness, in sharp contrast to the overall conviviality
of the place, and her lips silently form the words, "We are hungry."
Beware the Bourgeois Block
18th Fe. 2002
It's noon on a Monday, and we are on Florida Avenue, the main
pedestrian shopping street of Buenos Aires, no different from
London's Oxford Street, with its numerous McDonald's, Tower Records
and Benettons. This busy street, normally full of bankers and
business people making quick lunch time purchases, runs along the
edge of the financial district. But today something is not quite
normal. The rustle of shopping bags is drowned out by a deafening
racket.
A crowd of about 200 people are beating the steel sheet metal
that protects the entrance of a bank. They bang with hammers, ladles,
monkey wrenches, one woman even removes her shoe to use as a tool.
The entire facade of the building shudders under the fury of the
raining vibration of the blows. The force of some of the tools
manages to punch gaping holes straight through the metal, agile
gloved hands prise the sheets apart. Suddenly the armor falls away
and the crowd cheers.
A handful of people split off and invade a bank lobby across
the street. Within a fraction of a second all six ATM machines are
systematically smashed, shattered glass flies, and a woman sprays the
word "chorros," or crooks, in huge letters on the marble wall.
Nervous bank employees watch the scene from behind a glass door; an
egg sails through the air and breaks against it. The bankers flinch,
then turn away.
The crowd repeats the accusatory chant, "Ladrones, ladrones,"
or thieves, and then join in a longer chant, while jumping
ecstatically up and down, waving portfolios and briefcases around.
The chant translates loosely as "Whoever is not jumping is a banker,
whoever is not jumping is a thief...." When this dies down, everyone
casually exits the lobby and moves on to the next bank, less than
fifty yards up the street.
These kind of tactics have become archetypes of contemporary
protest: the shattered glass, graffiti smeared across bank walls, the
corporate symbols of capital destroyed. Images like these have been
imbedded in our imagination over the past few years, placed there by
the mega-machine of mainstream media in its attempt to divide,
discredit, and attack the growing anticapitalist movement, which is
increasingly referred to as "terrorist thugs", "violent anarchists,"
and "mindless mob." From London to Genoa, via Seattle, Prague, and
Québec City, it has been the same story, the same images, the same
rituals of symbolic destruction, played out over and over again; a
high drama which effectively sells newspapers when splashed across
the front page, and which serves to distract from the real issues at
hand. However, here in Buenos Aires, things are very, very, different.
For one thing, it was impossible to tell the demonstrators
from the passersby. Men in suits and ties with briefcases in one hand
and hammers in the other, women with gold bracelets, hand bags, and
high heels sharing cans of spray paint, anonymous suits on their
lunch break joining the fracas and then melting back into the crowd.
Walking through the pedestrian zone was astonishing - not only was it
impossible to tell who was who, but also, businesses remained open,
leaving their doors and windows open, fearless of looting or damage,
as it was perfectly clear that the targets were the banks and nothing
but the banks. Even McDonald's, usually having the honor of being the
first to lose its windows, left their door open, solely guarded by
the customary single private security guard.
Another major difference is that this is not the black bloc -
in fact there are no hooded sweatshirts to be seen. No one is masked,
although one woman covers her face with a newspaper and large
sunglasses, understandable if you've survived the disappearance of
30,000 of your fellow citizens. The spirit of "militant" (and often,
macho) clandestinity is completely absent. It is broad daylight -
while the bank is being trashed, shoppers are buying tennis shoes
next door, and the handful of police, unable to do anything, stand
idly, watching sheepishly. This is the most open, accountable, and
disciplined property damage (one can hardly call it a riot when the
police don't fight back) that we've ever witnessed. It's also
probably the most surreal. If one must call these people a bloc, and
why not, as they move and act as one, maybe "bourgeois bloc" would
suit them best.
The ahorristas, or savers, hold their demonstrations three
times a week. On the day we followed them, 17 banks were "visited."
Before meeting them, it was difficult to imagine women with shopping
bags and high heels kicking at corporate windows, huge lipstick grins
spreading as they watched the glass shatter into thousands of pieces.
That day they also surrounded every armored security van transporting
cash from bank to bank that they came upon and covered each one in
graffiti, while men in pin striped suits proceeded to unscrew the
wheel nuts and others pried open the hood, tearing out wires from the
running engines. Soccer moms jumped up and down on top of the vans,
smashing anything that could be broken, side mirrors, headlights,
license plates, windshield wipers and antennae. For three hours on a
Monday afternoon, our understanding of the world was turned on its
head, all our preconceptions and stereotypes melted away. "This could
be my mom," we kept thinking.
The ahorristas are the upper to lower middle class who have
had their life savings frozen by the government-imposed corralito.
Dressed in shirts and ties, pumps and designer sunglasses, they just
don't seem the sort who would be smashing up corporate property. They
are architects, computer programmers, doctors, housewives,
accountants, and even bank employees, one of whom, dressed in a
business suit and holding a wrench and a metal bowl, explained, "It's
not just the banks who are thieves, it's the government with the
corporations. They confiscated the money we had in the bank. They
stole it." She pauses, and then shakes her fist. "I am very angry!"
And yet the ahorristas are not simply the selfish petit
bourgeoisie, worried only about their own money. Their struggle has
broken out of the enclosure of self-interest, and has begun to
encompass a critique of much of the social system. They have publicly
allied themselves to the piqueteros and many take part in the
assemblies . "A lot more than just the government must change here,"
says Carlos, a computer programmer, who has painted slogans all over
his suit. His words echo those of the piquetero, Alejandro: "Us, the
piqueteros, and all the people who are fighting, are struggling for
social change. We do not believe in the capitalist neoliberal system
anymore."
Predicting the Unpredictable
The repudiation of the politicians and the economic elites is
complete," says José Luis Coraggio, the rector of a university in
Buenos Aires who is active in the movement. "None of them who are
recognized can walk the streets without being insulted or spat upon.
It is impossible to predict what will happen. Next month, or next
week, Duhalde could be deposed, we could be in a state of chaos, or
we could be building a new country that breaks with neoliberal and
capitalist orthodoxy."
Breaking with capitalist orthodoxy is what the IMF and the
supporters of global capitalism most fear. Last year Fidel Castro
caused a diplomatic storm when he accused Argentina of "licking the
Yankee boot." Currently that boot is held over Argentina's face and
will undoubtedly start kicking if the government does not find a way
to please the demands of global capital, and get back to the business
of licking again.
However, the government is between a rock and a hard place -
even if it had an iota of legitimacy within Argentinean society,
which it clearly doesn't, it could not possibly please both the hopes
of the citizens and the demands of capital as enforced by the IMF. So
what can it do?
Traditional remedies seem worthless, as the country's
currency is steadily plummeting in value on the foreign exchange
markets. People are queuing outside money changing shops for hours,
desperate to change their pesos into dollars, before their cash
becomes worthless. The government, in yet another desperate attempt
to appear in control, put restrictions on the exchange rate, but this
further infuriated the IMF because it is another artificial control
of the markets. In response, Doug Smith, a Wall Street analyst, said,
"The only thing that's going to stop this is for them to come up with
some announcements that are credible and get the IMF behind them
instead of trying to put Band-Aids on every situation." Yet there are
no credible announcements to be made, and the wounds are too deep for
Band-Aids.
A certain kind of language has become common currency
recently. The head of the IMF, Horst Koehler, has declared that "...
without pain, [Argentina] won't get out of this crisis." President
Bush called on Argentina to make some "tough calls" before even
thinking of the much-desired financial aid, and President Duhalde
himself said that things are going to get a lot worse before they get
better.
Is this tough talk laying the groundwork for a military coup?
After all, Argentina has had its fair share of these over the last
century. But given the residual illegitimacy of the military,
stemming from the decades of dictatorships, it seems that this option
is unlikely, and besides, no one wants to take power and inherit the
current situation, not even the military. In fact, it seems that
there may be dissent their ranks - one officer told reporters, "Even
if the situation turns to anarchy or civil war, if they ask me to
intervene, my principal concern will be making sure my orders will be
obeyed by my men."
More likely than another coup, or CIA-funded force invading
to "restore order" (common practice in Latin American history),
another form of outside intervention will be attempted. "Somebody has
to run the country with a tight grip," write two professors of
economics in a Financial Times article brilliantly entitled,
"Argentina cannot be trusted." The article goes on to suggest that
Argentina "must surrender its sovereignty on all financial issues,"
it must accept "...radical reform and foreign, hands-on control and
supervision of fiscal spending, money printing, and tax
administration," preferably from a "...board of foreign central
bankers," from "...small disinterested countries." To phrase it
another way, it would be like Belgian, Danish, and Swiss bankers
coming in to run the British Central Bank and Inland Revenue Service.
Despite shocking poll results saying that 47% of the
population agrees that large parts of Argentina's government should
be entrusted to international experts, there is such distrust in
banks that it seems unlikely that the arrival of more foreign bankers
will calm people's nerves. As Enrique Garcia, president of the Andean
Development Bank, said recently, "People in the streets feel that
instead of being part of the solution, the banking sector is part of
the problem."
The spirit on the streets and in the assemblies is that
people can govern themselves. Another poll showed that one in three
people had attended an assembly, and that 35% say the assemblies
constitute ''a new form of political organization." The spirit of
direct democracy and self-organization has never felt as strong as it
did as we watched the assemblies unfold in the long, warm Buenos
Aires evenings. President Duhalde may say, ''It is impossible to
govern with assemblies," and believe that "the democratic way to
organize and participate is through voting," but the people of
Argentina have taught themselves through practice the real meaning of
democracy, and the vacuous words of politicians now fall on deaf ears.
One evening, after attending his local assembly, a middle
aged man who was active in the resistance against the military
dictatorship, turned to us, and said in a soft, confident voice, "In
the last month we have achieved more than we did in forty years. In
four short weeks we have given ourselves enough hope to last us
another forty years."
So a choice does exist, despite the government's blind
adherence to the demands of the IMF. Argentina can choose between
sovereignty and occupation, between the local desire of people and
the global demands of capital, between democracy and empire, between
life and money, between hope and despair.
Watch this Space
15th Feb. 2002
When we first landed in Buenos Aires, we were immediately searching
for signs of the insurrection. Would this airport feel any different
from any other? Would the streets be clogged with traffic, or with
crowds? Was the garbage still being collected and the mail delivered?
Never having been in a country in the midst of a mass social
rebellion, we wondered what would appear different in everyday life.
Riding into the city, we got our first clue. The barren
stretches of highway that link cities with airports, so similar all
over the world, are always flanked by rows of large billboards,
advertising the staples of international business - Visa cards,
mobile phones, hotels, airlines. This was true on this sterile strip
of land, but something was different.
Over half the billboards were completely bare, with huge
white spaces where adverts would have been. There was something
really beautiful about them, as they stood enormous in their
emptiness, drained of the poisonous images of consumption, yet
seductive in their nothingness, freed from commerce, and filled with
possibility. They somehow stood for the space of change that this
country is undergoing, they spoke of the pause, the blank sheet of
paper waiting to be filled; they were the space from which a society
could begin to imagine something different, the space from which
people could begin to put dreams into action.
PART 2
2 July. 2002
Returning to Rebellion
I arrived back in Argentina the day after the suprise announcement
that early elections are going to be held in March next year. "I'm
not going to vote, why condemn your candidate to hell? No one can
govern this country," exclaims my friend Anabella on the way home
from the airport.
It's true - no one in their right mind would want to take on the
presidency of a country in such crisis. It's difficult for any
politician to appear in public without being hounded by angry
citizens, making campaigning a difficult task. General elections in
most countries tend towards farce, George W Bush's Florida coup being
the most memorable recent example. But in a situation where the
hatred for politicians is so endemic that the ex-finance minister,
Domingo Cavallo has to employed a decoy in a mask, Argentina's
elections are set to be pure burlesque.
Voting is compulsory in Argentina, unless you are 500km from your
home on polling day. During the elections of 1999 an anticapitalist
group took several hundred people 501km outside of Buenos Aires, to
hold debates about direct democracy and register with an extremely
perplexed local police force the fact that they weren't going to
vote. In last October's congressional elections, a record 22 per cent
cast blank votes or abstained - many put pictures of Osama Bin Laden
in their voting envelopes. Recent polls have revealed that 63 per
cent of Argentineans don't believe in representative democracy. This
time around many more will abstain. But breaking the law is
commonplace now - even the middle classes, or what's left of them,
are regularly refusing to pay taxes, or electricity bills.
There are three serious candidates who are neck a neck in the polls.
One of them is a fascinating political paradox - Luis Zamora. Zamora
is an ex-Trotskyite who has rejected his political past and has set
up a social movement called "Self-determination and Freedom" which is
influenced by Zapatismo and Autonomist ideas.
His movement is using the public space opened up by the election
process, mainstream media debates and so on, to bring to light the
rejection of representation and highlight other forms of power such
as the assembleas and direct democracy. When asked what he will do
if he is elected, Zamora says he wouldn't last a day and that he
doesn't want to be president anyway. "Go self-determine yourself,"
he says. "Take care of yourself, take it in your own hands, if you
don't take it in your own hands, nothing is going to change."
He describes what is happening in Argentina as "a revolution in the
heads of millions", a process where the entire country is rethinking
representative politics, discovering horizontal ways of organizing
and beginning to realise a situation where the "population is doing
politics" rather than the politicians. "The population is finding
that it is facing itself," he explains, "its culture is to always
look above, this is the culture that we all have. This is why this
moment is so passionate and beautiful, because it is rethinking this."
Only in Argentina could one have a presidential candidate who does
not want to be president and says things like: "the motto of the
'anti-globalization movement' that the resistance to capital be as
international as capital itself, is showing a way, that the
resistance to the barbarism of capitalism that is today globalized,
be global."
Capital Retreats
One of the most visible changes in Buenos Aires since we were last
here is the number of "cartoneras". These are the poor who collect
paper and cardboard from the streets for recycling. In February we
saw a few of them. Now on nearly every block of the city there are
groups of cartoneras scouring the waste bins and bags of rubbish with
their bare hands to find scraps of paper or cardboard to sell to
recycling companies. As darkness falls the streets are filled with
small groups of them pushing shopping trolleys loaded up with
enormous white bags bulging with paper. In the morning they are gone.
All that remains are trails of rubbish spilling from the bin bags
that have been opened.
Over half the country's population has now fallen below the poverty
line. Hunger continues to spread to places where it was previously
unheard of and unemployment is so endemic that there is a now a
popular TV game show where contestants compete for a job. Sony and
Time Warner are currently trying to outbid each other in an effort to
buy the show and take it worldwide.
Banking restrictions remain, and the ahorristas continue to
pressurise the courts and attack banks to get their savings back. Now
they even have a leader, a trashy TV comedian turned political
activist. Banks are still protected by steel sheeting. But the
repeated visits of the ahorristas armed with their hammers and
kitchen utensils have left thousands of dents and marks on the steel,
vivid traces of continuing rituals of resistance.
The Red Global del Trueque, the barter network, is expanding all the
time. It now has 7 million people participating in it, credits are
even accepted on some railway lines and many families rely on it for
90 per cent of their needs.
Businesses are closing down everyday. In many cases the directors,
unable to pay debts, simply disappear. This happened to some of the
factories that are now being self-managed by the workers. They
literally came into work one morning to find no managers and after
waiting several days for the management to turn up, decided to run
the factories themselves.
A book written by participants in the neighbourhood assemblies was
being printed at a well-known self-managed printing firm in Buenos
Aires when the police arrived to evict the building. A call went out
to the local assembly, and literally as the book was coming off the
presses they were forcing the police away and securing the building.
Across Argentina, capital and the state is in retreat. The spaces
that it leaves wide open are rapidly being filled by a multitude of
creative social endeavours.
Social Creativity Advances
It's mid-winter here, although you can hardly call it winter - it
feels more like a mild British spring. But partly due to the cold
weather, the out door assembleas have grown smaller and many have
decided to take over buildings, turning them into neighbourhood
social centres which provide a permanent presence and meeting space.
All kind of buildings are being occupied, and the idea is spreading
rapidly.
In the Villa Urquiza neighbourhood they have occupied an old
pizzeria. They serve a free meal everyday and free tea to Cartoneras
who use the local station to return in the early hours of the morning
to their homes in the sprawling suburbs. A large board in the street
outside acts as a community notice board, where people can advertise
any local jobs going, or share skills and neighbourhood information.
Several banks have been occupied. In Parque Lezama Sur, the assembly
has occupied the abandoned Banco de Mayo. When I visited, there were
children using the enormous steel door of the bank vault as a goal
for a wild indoor game of football. In one corner people were cooking
soup and a 'protest art' workshop was taking place in the main lobby.
Videos being shown in one of the back rooms, showed the day the space
was occupied, local people, young and old, forcing open the doors of
the bank and rapidly transforming a space of private commerce into a
collective space of cooperation and creativity. Bunches of wires from
the banks old computer network hang down from the ceiling and someone
had attached the banks mouse mats to all of them. Printed on the mats
the banks corporate slogan announced: " Banco de Mayo, changing for
you."
Killing Piqueteros
The Piquetero movement has been growing across the country and
despite a media campaign of criminalisation and warnings from the
president that the government was no longer going to tolerate any
more road blocks, a large mobilization took place on the 26th of June
cutting some major arteries into Buenos Aires. After dispersing the
crowd with teargas, rubber and real bullets, the police hunted
piqueteros throughout the city, often firing from the back of
cruising pick up trucks. What followed was the cold blooded murder of
two organisers, Darrio Santillán and Maximiliano Costequi, both in
their early twenties and both from the most radical piquetero
network. Darrio was shot in the back at close range while he was
helping Maxi who had been shot in the chest . By the end of the day
160 people had been arrested and over a hundred injured. It seems
that the whole thing was set up as a stage managed confrontation by
the state, but it failed to break the movement and the response from
every part the popular rebellion was incredible. Thirty thousand took
to the streets in support of the piqueteros, and within days the
president went on TV to apologise. The head of the secret service,
the minister of justice and the chief of Buenos Aires Police were
forced to resign and the police officers involved in the operation
were put in jail. Days later Duhalde announced the early elections,
brought forward by nearly a year, a clear sign that he is hanging
onto power by his finger tips and that in Argentina it is people in
the streets who are making politics.
17th July.2002
Beneath the Masks
The bus drops us beside a dirt track which is dotted with perilous
pot holes filled with rubbish. The sulphurous smell of raw sewage
rises from shallow channels of grey water that run alongside. We have
arrived in Admiralte Brown, a huge sprawling neighbourhood somewhere
beyond the southern edges of Buenos Aires. It feels like a hybrid of
shanty town, wasteland and a crumbling soviet housing estate, a place
where hope is in short supply and jobs are even fewer - unemployment
runs at over 80 per cent here. Yet this is a stronghold of one of the
most radical groups of Piqueteros, part of the Annibal Veron network
that was targeted on the 26th of June when Dario and Maxi were
murdered. This network is itself is part of the larger Movimento
Trabajero Desocupado (MTD - Movement of Unemployed Workers).
A small, hand-painted sign marks the entrance to the MTD bakery. We
pick our way through a pile of bicycles parked in the passageway
which leads to a courtyard where about twenty people are sitting in a
circle taking part in a workshop. Most are in their early twenties -
some a lot younger, a few a lot older. Despite the occasional barking
dogs, the gusts of wind, crowing cocks and small children running
between the chairs, the participants seem intensely focused as Lola,
the energetic young piquetero facilitator, hands out strips of paper.
Stuck on the rough concrete wall in front of them is a large sheet of
flip-chart paper divided into two columns, the left labelled: "MTD",
the right one: "CAPITALIST SYSTEM OF PRODUCTION".
The workshop is about to begin. As if on cue Astor bounces into the
courtyard carrying a basket of warm doughnuts which he passes around.
Astor works in the collective bakery. Short and stocky, dressed in
bright colours - and occasionally nicknamed 'monkey' - his wide face
continuously beams a cheeky smile. He sits down munching a doughnut
and joins the workshop.
"What's the difference between a bakery here and a bakery in the
capitalist system?" asks Lola. "Who are we producing for here?"
"We produce for our neighbours," pipes up Yvette, a grey-haired woman
in her fifties, her brown face furrowed like a deeply ploughed field,
"and to teach ourselves to do new things, to learn to produce for
ourselves".
"For whom do the bakers work in a capitalist system?" Lola continues.
"For the managers, for a corporation," replies Maria, who sports a
silver ring in her nose.
"The people working in bakeries are people like us," says Astor, "but
they have to work long hours, often up to 3am in the morning when the
dough goes in the ovens, they work their bodies to the bone."
Miguel, slouched in the corner and wearing an Iron Maiden sweat
shirt, butts in: "And yet the people who work hardest get the least
reward, they work in subhuman conditions, earn nothing and continue
to work. But we produce so that everyone can live better." For a
moment the group falls into contemplative silence.
Each strip of paper that Lola handed out has a statement written on
it about either the self-organised collective "MTD" form of
production or capitalist forms of production. The idea is they attach
their strip of paper on the appropriate column of the flip chart and
explain why they think it should go there.
A glum looking guy with long shaggy hair in a polyester black and red
Nike track-suit stands up first. He reads out his strip of paper.
"The most important aim is to make profits." He shakes his head.
"In the capitalist system, they don't care about peoples health or
nature, to them all that is interesting is to make money. We produce
for the needs of our neighbours, we all need a little bit of each
other, we need each other."
Yvette is next. "Only one person makes decisions." She slaps the
strip onto the "capitalist" column. "We decide things together here,
and the money we make we share between all of us..."
One by one they all take turns, standing up, eloquently explaining
the ways the different systems are organised and discussing each
point at length.
Suddenly two cats start to fight in the tree that overhangs the
courtyard. Tanya, a punky 21 year old who wears a chain and padlock
around her neck, and is in charge of the piqeteros Security, throws a
stone at the screaming cats, who scamper across the roof tops.
The workshop winds down with a long discussion about the problems of
working collectively. They discuss the issue of some people in the
groups who didn't participate in the process of contributing part of
their income to the collective and how the assemblea after much
discussion decided to expel them. Then one young woman explains how
she is confused about how to manage her handicraft work group in a
non-capitalist way. "We work five days making things, it takes so
much time, materials are expensive, we have to pay for travel to the
markets at weekends to sell stuff. It's so difficult." She worries
that she is falling into capitalist ways by selling things so far
away from the neighbourhood, things that people don't really 'need'.
The group comforts her, telling her that there are different ways of
producing things, that some compromises always have to be made, and
suggesting that she tries selling stuff at the craft fair run by the
social movement the Madres de Placa de Mayo.
"Do these principles we have been talking about really happen in the
MTD ?" asks Lola, provocatively. Her extraordinary facilitation had
meant everyone in the group has contributed to the debates.
"When we work together there are always some problems, not everyone
is used to common work." says Yvette.
"We are so used to a capitalist work system," exclaims Maria. "My
father worked in a capitalist system, so did his father - we are all
so used to being told what to do. For many people it's difficult to
have any initiative, they just wait to be given orders. And you know
what?" she continues, grinning. "We still have some authoritarians in
our group ! I'm not going to name names." Everyone bursts into
laughter.
As I sit there witnessing this extraordinary workshop, I try to
imagine a similar group of young unemployed people in my own country,
Britain, on a crumbling housing estate at 9.30 on a weekday morning.
I wonder if they could ever have such an engaged and keenly developed
critique of the system that had excluded and marginalized them so
utterly from society.
The Strength of Sharing
Martin is in his thirties, short, with dark piercing eyes and sharp
features. He founded the Admiralte Brown piqueteros group with Dario.
Inspired by the nearby Solano group, one day they put up posters
around the neighbourhood advertising a piquetero assembly. That was
two and a half years ago - things are now very different. The group
now has two sections within Admiralte Brown which meet in four
different assemblies, with over 200 participants. The national
Piquetero movements have become the key energy behind the popular
rebellion that has spread across Argentina and Dario is dead, shot by
the police three weeks ago.
Martin is the main person showing us around and introducing us to
people here. His commitment, like everyone in the group, to
non-hierarchical organising is total. He seems to have a leadership
role that is not about coercion or command but about networking and
storytelling. He displays a potent humility yet has a charismatic
confidence which enables him to make connections between people, and
he has a great knack for telling inspiring tales.
As we walk through the sprawling district, he lists the different
activities that they have self-organised: "We have a group building
sewage systems and another that helps people who only have tin roofs
on their houses to put proper roofs on. There is a press group which
produces our own media and makes links with the outside media. We
have the 'Copa de Leche' (cup of milk) which provides a glass of milk
to children every day. There's the bakery you just saw, and we're
building vegetable gardens and a library. What we are about to see is
the Ropero, the common clothes store."
Another wooden sign welcomes us to the MTD Ropero. We walk into a
small room where half a dozen women are sitting around a table.
Behind them a set of shelves has a few clothes folded on it. One
woman is sewing by hand.
They greet us warmly and sweet mate is handed around by the Griselda,
who shows us her red swollen fingers: "We mend all the clothes by
hand," she says, "it hurts my fingers so much, we have no sewing
machines."
She explains the function of the ropero. Its role is to distribute
clothing to families who can't afford them. MTD people hand out
explanatory leaflets, especially on the other side of the
neighbourhood which is marginally better off but suffers just as much
unemployment. People who have old clothes bring them here, where they
are cleaned and mended. Then, twice a month, the Ropero is open for
people from the whole neighbourhood to come and take clothes for free.
"How do you avoid people taking more than their fare share?" I ask.
"We have simple rules: no more than 3 clothes per person, and we have
a book where we write down who has taken what clothes," she says,
showing us a neatly written ledger with a dedication to Maxi and
Dario written on the inside page. "But the other day a mother came
who has ten children, and we didn't have enough to give them all
clothes they needed," she sighs.
A collection of objects are stuck to the walls of the room. There is
a faded picture of Jesus wearing a crown of thorns, a gaudy plastic
clock, and next to it a press cutting with the large headline
'AUTOGESTION', a beautiful word that has no direct equivalent in
English but means autonomous self-organising, self-management.
Beneath it is a hand-written sheet of paper that explains some of the
points of principle of the movement. Listed under the "Criteria for
work" are such things as: "Don't be a tourist in your groups, don't
just sit and watch"; "Respect others"; "Give voluntary money to the
common funds, especially if you get a Plan (unemployment subsidies )"
and "Go to the assemblies". Another column explains the criteria for
assemblies, including "Give priority to those who don't speak";
"Don't be authoritarian"; "Don't speak for others", and finally,
"Criticise , don't complain". Griselda points out the back copies of
the Aldmiralte Brown MTD photocopied newsletter also pinned to the
wall, telling us that many of the women here cannot read and that
every week when the newsletter comes out she reads it to them.
A woman at the end of the table holds up a pair of child's trousers
she is working on, pointing to a large rip at the knees. "We don't
have any material to make a patch, so we are cutting off the legs and
turning them into shorts," she explains.
She then picks out a pair of Nike trousers from the shelf to show us
what good condition some of the clothes that she mends are in. As she
shows them to us, I wonder about the journey these trousers must have
made, from the hands of a sweatshop worker in East Asia, via ships
and shops, to Argentina, where they were bought, worn, donated and
then mended by another hand, finaly to be given away as part of the
project of an anticapitalist movement of unemployed workers.
Building Power
We are invited to have lunch with some of the people who work on the
newsletter. They live on the other side of Admiralte Brown where
small concrete houses give way to row after row of identical grey
apartment blocks.
Over lunch in a small flat which doubles up as the newsletter office,
we talk about global networks of resistance and swap stories of
struggle and tactical tips. I tell them about the very different kind
of roadblocks that I had been involved in with Reclaim the Streets in
London. They tell me about the "Queen of the Piquete" fashion show
that was put on by queer piqueteros during a road block. The
extraordinary image of drag queens dancing through barricades of
burning tyres is a hard one to shake.
The next day someone tells me that Carla, the large woman in her late
fifties who cooked us lunch is in fact the same person who appears in
the middle of the double page spread of the first edition ( and this
edition) of our Argentina report, pictured sitting in front of
burning tyres on blockaded motorway, masked up and wearing mirror
shades!
These kind of apocalyptic images are, the overriding public image of
the piqueteros. Leading up to the murders of the 26th of July, the
mainstream media were manufacturing stories of violence including
rumours that some piqueteros were preparing for armed uprisings
inspired by leftist guerrillas. On the day itself, minutes after the
deaths the media reported the police statements which said that the
deaths were the result of rivalry between different Piquetero groups,
something they had to retract as soon as pictures of the police
shooting directly at individuals at close range came out. Two
enormous demonstrations of support with people from every social
strata have taken place since then and the piquetero movement itself
is continuing to grow rapidly. "Since the 26th, links to the
neighbourhood Assemblies movement have grown, they realise that we
are not that different from them" explained Anna, one of the editors
of the local MTD news letter.
The murders and mass arrests of the 26th changed a lot for the
Annibal Verron network: "None of us are born MTD activists, we have
to become one, we are a new movement," Maria explained to me, "since
the deaths we have two priorities - to change the way we organise so
as to dismantle the fear of repression that is growing and to have
food for everyone in the movementî. A big debate is taking place
about the role of masking up during actions, and it seems a decision
has been made to stop wearing masks for the time being.
The challenge is to present the movement as unemployed workers,
first, piqueteros, second. The piquete is just a tactic - though an
amazingly successful one. "Direct action gets the goods," was the
slogan of the Wobblies at the turn of the 20th century, and for the
piqueteros that is certainly true. They block the roads, demand a
specific number of 'plan trabajor', the unemployed subsidies, and
more often than not get them from the local government - about 40
pounds a month per person. They have also used the tactic to back
various demands, including getting food from supermarkets.
Last Christmas they picketed eight blocks, closing down six
supermarkets in one go. They demanded food for the neighbourhood's
Christmas dinner. Lines of supermarket workers, who had been
threatened with losing their jobs if they did not comply, protected
the supermarkets behind a line of shopping trolleys and security
guards. Eventually the Piqueteros convinced the management that it
would be cheaper for them to give them food than to remain closed for
the entire day.
But it's the constructive aspects of the movement which they want to
show to the world: the self organisation, the direct democracy and
the numerous neighbourhood projects, the bakery, the ropero and so
on. As in many protest movements it is these constructive elements
which are so difficult to make visible. The powerful current in our
culture which obscures constructive, creative situations with the
spectacle of conflict and confrontation runs deep.
The murders were less than 20 days ago, and yet no one seems
paralysed by despair: "If another companero had been killed, Dario
would have kept up the struggle, in fact he would have worked even
harder... we have to continue to fight for food and projects - if we
give up, we will have nothing," says Tanya.
Pillars of the Movement
After lunch we go to one of the two weekly MTD assemblies which are
happening simultaneously in Admiralte Brown that afternoon. Besides
piles of burnt plastic and a ruined wall with a circle A and the
words "False Euphoria" graffitied onto it, a group of 70 or more
people stand in a makeshift circle. Raising their voices against the
cold biting wind, they openly discuss the problems of the last week,
share information and make plans for the following days.
A key event will be next week's commemoration of the June repression.
Activists from the United States, part of Art and Revolution, one of
the key groups involved in the Direct Action Network that Shut down
the World Trade Organisation ministerial meeting in 1999 in Seattle,
have been working with the piqueteros here over the last few days
building giant puppets out of cardboard for the commemoration events.
A young woman proudly presents her puppet, attached to a long stick
which she holds high in the air.
It's mostly women who do the speaking at the assemblea. Earlier, Anna
had told to me how woman are the ones who are hit hardest by
unemployment. When there is no food to put on the table, no clothes
to dress the children in, it is they who are at the sharp end of
poverty. Often the men feel rejected and are paralysed by the loss of
identity which follows unemployment and in many cases it has been the
women who have been the first to get out of the home into the streets
to take part in piquetes. "Women's struggle is the pillar of the
movement," she tells me.
Astor's mother had joined the movement before him. He had a job
selling loans for new cars, and every time he saw his elderly mother
on TV, masked up and blocking the highways, he would cringe with
embarrassment. But now no one buys cars and the job disappeared. So
one day he went to the piquetero assembly out of curiosity, and he
saw how women, many of them elderly, many of whom had never had the
possibility to make decisions or express important things about their
lives, were able to put up their hand and talk freely and people
would listen to them. They would propose good ideas and then they
would then go into the streets for their children's sake. Astor has
three children and soon he realised that he had to join the movement
too.
Transforming the Fences
After the assembly, Martin takes us across a football pitch that has
probably never seen grass and whose goals are so rusty that they seem
to have been bent by the wind that blasts across this place. He shows
us the "Copa de Leche", the project which distributes milk to
children. It is in a squatted building next to an occupied plot of
land.
They took the fences down that surrounded the land. All that remains
of them are a few broken concrete posts. The rest have been cut up
and used to build a brand new oven for baking bread. The old fence
posts are literally what makes up the base of a huge roaring outdoor
oven standing on the edge of this deserted football pitch and
surrounded by newly dug vegetable plots. On the side of the oven one
could just make out the words 'Cambio Social' - social change -
roughly painted there the day before by young piqueteros, trying out
their paint brushes during the puppet-making workshop.
Two huge guys are stoking the fire and as we arrive we see them pull
out a tray of freshly baked bread. Their faces erupt with pleasure as
they set eyes on the steaming loaves, the first batch ever to come
out of the oven. They pass them to an elderly woman who takes them
into the building, only to return a few seconds later scowling and
handing them back, saying they haven't been cooked enough, that the
dough inside is still raw. The men hang their heads with bruised
pride and hastily stuff the tray back into the oven.
Fences coming down has been one of the most powerful images of
emancipatory movements throughout history, a perfect practise and
metaphor for challenging the enclosure of life and land by capital.
It was the 18th century philosopher, Jean-Jaques Rousseau who said of
the first man who enclosed a piece of land as his own, "If only
someone had pulled up the stakes and cried to his fellows: 'You are
undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us
all, and the earth itself to nobody!"
Unfortunately no one cried out then, but stakes have been pulled and
fences been falling for hundreds of years - from the 16th Century
Diggers to the assaults on the security fences during the actions
against Free Trade of the Americas Agreement (FTAA) in Quebec and G8
in Genoa.
The image of fences being pulled down and the posts being turned into
something practical strikes me as a beautiful metaphor for the
transformation of the enclosures of capital into creative autonomous
tools of social revolution. A transformation which involves people
beginning to build the life that they want and preparing to defend it
rather than simply protesting against what they don't want.
Most of my life has been an attempt at finding a space where poetic
acts and pragmatic solutions merge, a space between the imagination
of art and the social transformation of activism, between
utilitarianism and utopia, symbols and survival.
But I realise that it is perhaps a luxury to dwell on the beauty of
metaphors when faced with hunger. Here fences were torn down and were
transformed by people, most of whom had never even heard of Quebec,
Genoa, or the Diggers, but who simply knew how to make the best use
of a redundant fence.
Earlier, Martin had illustrated some of the difference between the
symbolic nature of protest and the pragmatic nature of social
revolution. He told me that they had once used a banner against the
FTAA during a road block, but that they couldn't do an action against
the FTTA itself. He re-emphasised the fact that the road blocks are
specific tools to get specific demands. "You couldn't do one to
demand that the FTAA is abolished, because it's too much risk with no
direct reward," he explained. "When you do an action with a pragmatic
end, even if you fail the first time, then the next time you try
harder. No one would be willing to risk so much for an abstraction."
This same dichotomy came up again the following day when I am shown
the indoor bakery. On the wall are beautiful ceramic tiles, a blast
of colour amongst the dusty greys and browns of Admiralte Brown. "How
beautiful," I say.
"Yes," says Astor, "a ceramicist made them for us and gave us a furnace too."
"Great," I think, imagining the piqueteros making tiles and giving
their houses some brightness.
"But we are trying to work out how to transform the furnace into a
bread oven - we don't need tiles." He takes a deep intake of breath.
"Trouble is it burns too hot."
I don't remember who it was who asked the provocative question, "What
is more beautiful? The paintings of the Sistine chapel, or the sight
of carts in the morning bringing bread to the poor?". My answer was
always the later, yet I always want to resist the reduction of
political acts to those of necessity. From my position of priveledge
having never experienced the reality of poverty, it is easy to
critique the politics of utilitarianism, feeling it determines limits
of change before these limits are even known, that it strangles the
spontaneity and creativity of radical action, that it dulls the
imagination of a better future.
With these conflicts swirling around my head I say goodbye to Martin.
"When I come back to Argentina I'll be able to speak good Spanish." I
promise him. "Great," he laughs, "then you will be able to read Don
Quixote."
Don Quixote - how could I forget! Suddenly his parting comment
dissolves the false dichotomy that had muddled my thinking. It's not
a choice between bread OR beauty. The dichotomy between imagination
and reason, bread and roses doesn't exist. If your hungry bread IS
beautiful and baking bread on occupied land is an act that is so
filled with meaning, and symbolism, that few would miss its
significance.
Don Quixote ,the 16th century tale of the delusional old man who
thinks he is a knight errant travelling across Spain to right all
wrongs, fighting windmills he believes to be giants, with Sancho
Panza at his side, an illiterate but shrewd peasant primarily
interested in eating and drinking, illustrates these false
dichotomies perfectly. The differences between imagination and
realism, fiction and reality are shown to be illusions throughout the
book.
"Don Quixote is the best book of political theory," says
Subcommandante Marcos, and apparently the book is always at his side.
The most effective political practices are those that dissolve
dichotomies and play with paradox. Zapatismo is a wonderful example
of a practise where the beauty of symbols and the necessity of
survival merge.
In Martin's laugh and parting words I see someone with a profound
vision. An insurrectionary imagination that sees the poetry in a
roaring bread oven, recognises the beauty in the fences coming down,
and ultimately understands that from all this comes dignity. Dignity
which all of us need more than any loaf of bread.
And when I look around me, in this landscape of deprivation I realise
that the most beautiful thing here is exactly that, it is peoples
dignity. Dignity that battles against exclusion. Dignity that is just
as powerful and as beautiful as any colour, or poem, or song.
Those who live in Admiralte Brown have been forced to the edges of a
system that only cares about the centre, only cares about those who
can produce, who can contribute to the monster of economic growth
that is choking the planet. Many have talked about the energy and
creativity of the global movement of movements coming from the seams
of society, erupting from the margins, from those who are without -
the lesses - the landless, jobless, paperless, homeless. Here we are
surrounded by the seams, a nowhere-land, a wasteland of wasted lives
and wasted futures and yet here there is a spirit of creativity and
struggle that is so strong, so solid and so irresistible.
The piqueteros know that you gain nothing by winning power. They
don't want to take over the crumbling centre, they want to bring down
all fences, and reclaim the edges, bringing life that's worth living
back into their community. "We are building power, not taking it," is
how Martin described it.
Whenever I asked people what had changed in their lives since they
became involved in the MTD, they told me that the loneliness and
isolation of unemployment and poverty had disappeared. They spoke of
the power of togetherness and community. Tanya said to me, "The
biggest change was the relationship with other people in the
neighbourhood, the development of friendship and the possibility of
sharing... When you're on a road block and you have nothing to eat,
the people next to you share their food. Now I feel I'm living in a
large family, my neighbours are my family."
The fear and mistrust sown by the military dictatorship destroyed
connections between people and since then the dictatorship of the
markets has built even more fences and separations, but the fences
erected between people are now being pulled down by the strength of
sharing.
When I asked Tanya, weather she was aware of any past examples of
self-management and autonomy - the Diggers, the Paris Commune etc,
she replied: "No, I don't know these things. All I know is that I
have lived here, in the neighbourhood, all my life and I see that
people don't have proper homes, or food to put on their table, or
streets that aren't muddy tracks - and I don't know what name to give
to what we are doing here, all I can call it is "social change ."
John
Jordan, Higham, Kent, 27 Aug. 2002
Some individuals names have been changed
A Post Script for the Global Anticapitalist Movement
Argentina's crisis is fast emerging as a sort of economic Rorschach
test, used by economists and theoreticians of all ideological
persuasions to prove their point," says the Financial Times.
"Opponents of the 'Washington Consensus' say Argentina's experience
shows the perils of following the recipes of the IMF. Supporters of
free markets say Argentina's experience shows the danger of not
opening up [the economy] enough."
Argentina may well prove to be the crisis which irrevocably
splits the ever-widening crack in the neoliberal armor, especially if
things continue to unravel in other parts of Latin America. Recent
events in Venezuela, and the possibility of left wing gains in this
year's Brazilian presidential elections, point to a shift away from
the "Washington Consensus" across much of the region.
The last decade has seen the increasing delegitimazation of
the neoliberal model, as a movement of movements has sprung up on
every continent, challenging the seemingly unstoppable expansion of
capital. From Chiapas to Genoa, Seattle to Porto Alegre, Bangalore to
Soweto, people have occupied the streets, taken direct action,
practiced models of self-organization, and celebrated a radical
spirit of autonomy, diversity, and interdependence. The movements
seemed unstoppable, as mass mobilizations got bigger, more diverse
populations converged, and the World Bank, WTO, IMF, and G8 were
forced to meet on mountain tops, protected by repressive regimes, or
behind fences defended by thousands of riot police. Seeing them on
the defensive, having to justify their existence, gave the movements
an extraordinary sense of hope.
By identifying the underlying global problem as capitalism,
and by developing extraordinary international networks of inspiration
in very short amounts of time, it felt almost as though history were
speeding up, that perhaps we could succeed in the next phase, the
process of imagining and constructing worlds which exist beyond greed
and competition. Then, history did what it does best, surprising us
all on September 11th when the twin towers were brought down, and it
seemed for a while that everything had changed.
Suddenly hope was replaced by the politics of despair and
fear. Demonstrations were called off, funding was pulled, and mass
backpedaling and distancing occurred within the movement itself.
Commentators immediately declared anticapitalism dead. The editor of
The Guardian wrote "since September 11th, there is no appetite for
[antiglobalization], no interest, and the issues that were
all-consuming a few months ago seem irrelevant now." Others suggested
that the movement was somehow linked to the terrorists. Clare Short,
the UK development minister, stated that the movement's demands were
very similar to those of Al-Qaida.
September the 11th forced a reappraisal among activists,
particularly in the global North. It challenged us all to take a deep
breath, put our rhetoric into practice, and think strategically, and
fast. Then three months later, history seemed to resume its
accelerated speed, when Argentina erupted, followed closely by the
collapse of Enron. It seemed that despite the blindly nationalist,
racist, and indefinite "war on terror" to distract the world,
neoliberalism was continuing to disintegrate.
Perhaps the biggest challenge the global movements face now
is to realize that the first round is over, and that the slogan first
sprayed on a building in Seattle and last seen on a burning police
van in Genoa, "We Are Winning," may actually be true. The "crisis of
legitimacy" expands exponentially almost daily. Corporations and
institutions such as the World Bank and the G8 are constantly trying
to appease the growing global uprising, with empty promises of
environmental sustainability and poverty reduction.
On May Day, 2002 a new book is being launched by academics
who lament, "Today there is an anticapitalist orthodoxy that goes
beyond a latent hostility to big business. Its a well-organized
critique of capitalism." The book argues that we must "start standing
up for capitalism" because it's "the best thing that ever happened to
the world," and that "if we want to change the world then we should
do it through business," and treat capitalism as a "hero, not a
villain." Perhaps a few hours on the streets of Argentina, or a chat
with former employees of Enron would show them the true villainy and
absurdity of capitalism.
With mainstream commentators falling over themselves to
declare that capitalism is good for us and will save the world, it
seems clear that the first round of this movement has been a victory.
There has been a "...nearly complete collapse of the prevailing
economic theory," according to economist James K. Galbraith. But the
next round will be the hardest. It will involve applying our
critiques and principles to our everyday lives; it will be a stage of
working close to home. A stage where mass conflict on the streets is
balanced (but not entirely replaced) with creating alternatives to
capitalism in our neighborhoods, our towns and cities, our
bioregions. This is exactly where Argentina can show us an inspiring
way to move forward.
The situation in Argentina contains many elements of the
anticapitalist movements: the practice of direct action,
self-management and direct democracy; the belief in the power of
diversity, decentralization, and solidarity; the convergence of
radically different social sectors; the rejection of the state,
multinational corporations, and financial institutions. Yet, what is
most incredible is that the form of the uprising arose spontaneously,
it was not imposed or suggested by activists, but rather, created by
ordinary people from the ground up, resulting in a truly popular
rebellion that is taking place every day, every week, and including
every sort of person imaginable.
Argentina has become a living laboratory of struggle, a place
where the popular politics of the future are being invented. In the
face of poverty and economic meltdown, people have found enough hope
to continue resisting, and have mustered sufficient creativity to
begin building alternatives to the despair of capitalism. The global
movements can learn much in this laboratory. In many ways it is
comparable with the social revolutions of Spain in 1936, of France in
May 1968, and more recently, in southern Mexico, with the 1994
uprising of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) - all
rebellions which inspired, then and now, millions around the world.
It was a spirit of innovative solidarity that sparked a
transformation of the practice of politics, and led us into the first
stage of this new evolution of people's movements. The Zapatistas
sowed the seeds for creating "rebellions which listen" to local needs
and demands, and which are therefore particular to each place, and
activists from around the world responded, not only through
traditional forms of international solidarity as practiced during the
1970-80s, particularly by Central American solidarity groups, but
also through applying the spirit of Zapatismo by "listening" at home.
This network of listening that has occurred between many
different cultures has been a cornerstone for the first round of this
global movement, as it wove together its multiple differences,
forming a powerful fabric of struggle. The second round needs to
maintain these networks that nurture mutual inspiration flowing,
because no revolution can succeed without hope. But the global
anticapitalist movement also needs the reassurance of seeing its
desires and aspirations being lived on a daily basis. The Zapatista
autonomous municipalities in Chiapas are a kind of model, but are
firmly rooted in indigenous culture, are small enclaves within a
larger state, and are largely unexportable. Argentina, however, is an
entire society undergoing transformation. It is a model that is much
easier for the movements, especially those of the global North, to
imagine occurring at home.
However, the movement in Argentina is in danger of isolation;
without the security and the mutual inspiration of international
solidarity, it will suffer greatly. The mainstream press has mostly
ignored the situation since the December riots, and most people we
met felt that the world was unaware of their plight. For once, no one
was chanting "the whole world is watching," because of course, it is
in the interest of capitalism's defense team to ensure that we don't
get to watch, don't get to see what's really going on. Although many
anticapitalists worldwide have said "Thank god for Argentina," as
we've had our hopes rekindled in the dark days post 9-11, most of the
people on the streets of Argentina have no idea that they've provided
such widespread optimism.
If Chiapas was the place from which the seeds of the first
round of this movement blew, then Argentina could well be where those
seeds land, begin to sprout, and put down roots. We need to find
creative ways to support and learn from the rebellion there as we did
with the Zapatistas. Some solidarity actions have been taken - the
Argentinean embassy in London was occupied and an anarchist flag hung
out front, cacerolazos have taken place from Seattle to Sao Paolo,
Rome to Nairobi. A chant directed against the World Economic Forum
when they met in New York, proclaimed, "They are Enron, we are
Argentina!" But much more could be done, more stories could be
exchanged, actions coordinated, and visits to the laboratory
undertaken.
There is a joke currently circulating the Japanese banking
community, that goes: "What's the difference between Japan and
Argentina ?" "About eighteen months." These bankers well know that
the economic situation in Argentina will occur elsewhere, and that it
is inevitable that the tug of war between people's desires for a
better life and the demands of global capital will result in
explosions across the planet. A recent report by the World
Development Movement documents 77 separate incidents of civil unrest
in 23 countries, all relating to IMF protests, and all occurring in
the year 2001. From Angola to Nepal to Columbia to Turkey, the same
cracks are appearing in the neoliberal "logic," and people are
resisting. A dozen countries are poised to be the "next Argentina,"
and some of them may be a lot closer to home than we ever imagined.
We need to be prepared, not only to resist, but to find ways
to rebuild our societies when the economic crisis hits. If the
popular rebellion in Argentina succeeds, it could show the world that
people are able to live through severe economic crisis and come out
the other side, not merely having survived, but stronger, and happier
for struggling for new ways of living.
As this goes to print, the economic crisis in Argentina
continues to spiral out of control. Having succeeded in winning legal
battles against the government (setting legal precedent that
ricochets around the globe) and recovering their savings from banks,
thousands of depositors are withdrawing their money from the banking
system as fast as they can. In recent days a judge has sent a police
contingent and a locksmith to a branch of HSBC to recover a
claimant's savings, while the vault of a branch of Banco Provincia
was opened with the aid of a blowtorch. With the banking system about
to go belly up, the government decided to close all banks for an
"indefinite holiday." When the IMF refused again to loan more money
and the Argentinean congress threw out a bill that proposed
converting the frozen bank savings into IOU government bonds, the new
minister of economy resigned. In an emergency press conference,
Duhalde declared "Banks will have to open again and God knows what
will happen then. Banks cannot be closed permanently. It would be
absurd to think of a capitalist system without banks."
It may be absurd to think of a capitalist system without
banks, but it is equally absurd to believe in the continuation of the
present global system. Perhaps the most realistic thing to imagine at
the beginning of this already war-torn century, is a system free of
capitalism, one without banks, without poverty, without despair, a
system whose currency is creativity and hope, a system that rewards
cooperation rather than competition, a system that values the will of
the people over the rule of the market. One day we may look back at
the absurdity of the present and remember how the people of Argentina
inspired us to demand the impossible, and invited us to build new
worlds which spread outwards from our own neighborhoods.
John Jordan and Jennifer Whitney, May Day 2002
December 20th/21st 2002
A GLOBAL DAY OF SOCIAL DISOBEDIENCE FOR ARGENTINA TO
CELEBRATE CREATIVE ALTERNATIVES TO THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE MARKETS.
Groups in Argentina and across the globe are calling for a global day
of Action to demonstrate that those who are building alternatives to
the dictatorship of the markets are not alone.
On the 20th of December, a day when tens of thousands will take to
the streets of Argentina to celebrate the first anniversary of last
years uprising, actions and events will take place across the world
in solidarity with the people of Argentina.
The day will demonstrate that the movement of movements against
capitalism can move beyond insurrection towards a real social
revolution. A social revolution, made of thousands of revolutions,
where people are beginning to build the life that they want and
preparing to defend it rather than simply protesting against what
they don't want. And that Argentina is an inspiring model of this.
What can you do on the day ? Here are some ideas ...Take pots and
pans into the streets to celebrate the sound of the Cacerolazo,
start up a local neighbourhood assembly, visit your local banks who
have branches in Argentina, Blockade roads in solidarity with the
Piqueteros, occupy your work place or college and try out self
management, subvert the spirit of consumer Christmas by creating a
barter market ....the options are endless...
Resources
www.argentina.indymedia.org
Argentina's own independent media centre, mostly in spanish, a great
source of information straight from the streets.
www.americas.org/country/argentina
Loads of links to excellent English language news and analysis about
the crisis.
www.ft.com/argentina
The Financial Times, always the best coverage of struggles in the
global South! Why? Because they affect investment ...
www.buenosairesherald.com
Argentina's English language daily paper on line. Good for up to the
minute news.
Text by:
John Jordan and Jennifer Whitney.
Photography:
Andrew Stern, Argentina Arde, Argentina IMC, John Jordan.
Thanks to:
María Eva, Martín, Ezequiel, Maite, Chumbawamba, Griselda, Raphael
and many others on the streets. Annabela, Gabriel, Manuel for the
flat from heaven. Greyg for fellow travelling. Everyone at Admiralte
Brown MTD. Naomi and Avi for contagious optimism. Sherry Fraser for
Photo Shop wizardry. Guilty and Cactus for late night redesign. James
and Jane for a hideout on the marshes. Joane and Josephine for love
and support.
For more copies contact:
quesevayantodos@gn.apc.org
Translations and PDF of Que Se Vayan Todos Part 1:
Geman:http://www.nadir.org/nadir/initiativ/inter/consulta/quesevayan.htm
Finnish:http://vaikuttava.net/sections.php?op=viewarticle&artid=31
PDF:http://www.nadir.org/nadir/initiativ/agp/new/argentina/argentina1.pdf
For similar inspiration in print check out the forthcoming book
"We Are Everywhere: The Irresistable Rise of Anticapitalism"
published by Verso at the end of 2002. www.weareeverywhere.org
- --
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"Be realistic and do the impossible, because if we don't do the
impossible, we face the unthinkable." Murray Bookchin
WE ARE EVERYWHERE - a radical publishing project, needs your contributions.
http:// www.WeAreEverywhere.org
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